INTRODUCTION 


the  publication  of  "The  Phantom  Ship"  in  1839, 
Captain  Marryat  entered  upon  a  new  phase  of  his  literary 
career.  Hitherto  his  stories  had  been  based  on  his  own 
experience  of  life  on  the  high  seas,  but  in  "  The  Phantom 
Ship"  he  forsakes  the  safe  ground  of  experience  for  the 
perilous  realms  of  the  supernatural.  The  basis  of  this  novel 
is  the  well-known  legend  of  the  Flying  Dutchman,  and  in 
order  to  give  his  narrative  that  touch  of  remoteness  from 
the  practical  realities  of  the  present  which  the  supernatural 
theme  seemed  to  require,  Captain  Marryat  refers  it  to  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  places  his  scene  on 
board  the  vessels  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company.  This 
last  change  is  of  little  or  no  importance,  for  although  his 
mariners  and  their  ships  have  foreign  names,  they  bear  a 
strong  resemblance  in  all  essentials  to  the  bluejackets  of  her 
Majesty's  navy. 

In  attempting  to  give  to  his  story  an  air  of  antiquity,  how- 
ever, Marryat  was  not  very  successful.  The  means  on  which 
he  relies  for  producing  this  effect  are,  it  is  true,  of  the  simplest 
description,  and  consist  mainly  in  a  liberal  use  of  the  second 
person  singular,  yet  even  this  slight  change  from  his  wonted 
style  seems  to  encumber  the  flow  of  the  narrative,  and  pro- 
duces, in  fact,  some  very  stilted  and  forced  dialogue.  All 
this  vanishes,  fortunately,  as  soon  as  the  author  warms  to  his 
work,  and  by  the  time  the  story  is  well  under  way,  the  seven- 
teenth century  and  its  requirements  are  entirely  forgotten. 


2024444 


INTRODUCTION 

Since  he  had  made  choice  of  a  supernatural  legend  as  his 
main  theme,  Captain  Marryat  seems  to  have  felt  himself 
bound  to  introduce  as  many  other  incidents  of  a  non-natural 
character  as  he  possibly  could<  For  this  reason  the  hero, 
Philip  Vanderdecken,  is  made  to  marry  a  girl  of  Arab  extrac- 
tion, who  is  constantly  attempting  to  recall  the  half-forgotten 
magical  arts  which  her  mother  had  practised.  An  oppor- 
tunity is  also  found  in  the  history  of  Krantz,  the  second  mate 
of  the  Vrow  Katerina,  for  bringing  in  the  Scandinavian  legend 
of  the  were-wolf,  which  has  certainly  never  been  related 
with  a  greater  wealth  of  ghoulish  and  ghastly  incidents.  In 
spite  of  all  this,  Captain  Marryat  does  not  appear  to  the  best 
advantage  when  dealing  with  supernatural  themes.  The 
legend  of  the  Flying  Dutchman  loses  something  of  consistency 
in  his  hands :  at  one  time  the  doomed  vessel  is  an  insub- 
stantial vision,  which  can  pass  clean  through  the  Utrecht,  at 
another  she  is  a  real  craft  whose  deck  can  be  boarded  by 
mortal  men.  Schriften,  too,  the  one-eyed  pilot,  is  no  part  of 
the  original  legend,  and  though  he  has  his  uses  in  Marryat's 
version,  the  reader  is  not  permitted  to  discover  them  until 
the  very  end  of  the  book,  when  he  naturally  feels  himself  a 
little  aggrieved  at  having  so  much  mystery  forced  upon  him, 
all  for  the  sake  of  an  obvious  moral.  Amine's  witchcraft, 
again,  seems  a  rather  purposeless  invention.  Her  constant 
efforts  to  influence  and  help  her  husband's  career  are 
absolutely  futile,  and  bring  about  nothing  but  her  own 
destruction.  The  fact,  however,  of  her  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  Inquisition  at  Goa,  gives  Marryat  an  oppor- 
tunity for  a  very  accurate  and  graphic  description  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  Holy  Office,  in  the  capital  of  the  Portu- 
guese East  Indies.  "The  Inquisition  scenes,"  says  Mr. 
David  Hannay,  "are  the  best  passages  of  pure  melodrama 
in  his  work.  The  effect  is  largely  obtained,  as  is  not  unusual 
with  him,  by  the  simple  and  also  perfectly  legitimate  process 
of  conveyance,  pure  and  simple.  He  took  Dellon's  Relation 
vi. 


INTRODUCTION 

de  F  Inquisition  de  Goa,  and  transferred  the  Frenchman's 
gruesome  picture  to  his  own  pages."  In  short,  Captain 
Marryat  is  not  a  Prospero,  for  though  he  can,  after  a  fashion, 
call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep,  he  does  not  know  what  to 
do  with  them,  and  when  they  obey  his  summons  he  cannot 
manage  them.  Though  horrors  are  piled  on  horrors,  and 
sorcery,  evil  spirits,  and  ghosts  do  their  worst,  the  result  is 
neither  satisfactory  nor  convincing. 

The  really  interesting  and  effective  parts  of  the  book  are 
those  in  which  Captain  Marryat  goes  back  again  to  the  in- 
cidents of  his  own  experience,  or  narrates  the  adventures 
in  which  the  maritime  history  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  so  wonderfully  rich.  When,  for  a  few  chapters,  the  spirits 
are  forgotten,  and  the  heroism  or  wickedness  of  fleshly 
human  sinners  is  the  theme,  the  author  is  on  safe  ground 
again,  and  here  in  his  own  field  he  is  as  successful  as  ever. 
"The  Phantom  Ship"  undoubtedly  contains  some  of  Marryat's 
best  work  of  this  kind.  The  wreck  of  the  Ter  Schilling, 
and  the  subsequent  adventures  of  the  survivors  among  the 
Hottentots  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  is  an  energetic  and 
spirited  piece  of  description.  Another  powerful  scene  is  the 
marooning  of  Commodore  Avenhorn  on  a  desolate  island  in 
the  Straits  of  Magellan,  and  still  more  exciting  is  the  vivid 
and  minute  description  of  the  fire  at  sea  in  which  the  from 
Katerma  perished.  The  somewhat  sombre  character  of  the 
story  is  admirablv  enlivened  by  the  humorous  account  of 
the  sufferings  of  Van  Stroom,  the  supercargo  of  the  Ter 
Schilling.  Captain  Marryat  describes  his  misadventures  with 
the  contemptuous  glee  which  the  sailor  by  profession  feels 
for  all  mere  landlubbers,  and  spares  no  pains  to  make  the 
poor  man  thoroughly  ridiculous.  Storm  and  shipwreck  are 
not  enough  for  his  discomfiture,  but  he  must  also  be  delivered 
over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  captain's  tame  bear,  who 
makes  sad  havoc  with  the  flowing  curls  of  his  landsman's 
wig.  Another  good  comic  figure  is  Captain  Barents,  with  1»8 
ffi 


INTRODUCTION 

absurd  infatuation  for  his  old  badly-built  hulk,  the  Vrom 
Katerina,  in  his  estimation  the  finest  ship  that  ever  drew 
water.  The  chief  artistic  merit  of  "The  Phantom  Ship," 
however,  is  its  dramatic  ending.  A  less  accomplished  story- 
teller than  Captain  Marryat  might  have  fallen  into  the  error 
of  allowing  Philip  Vanderdecken  to  live  on  when  his  wife 
was  dead  and  his  mission  was  accomplished.  No  such  mistake 
was  possible  to  Captain  Marryat :  he  saw  that  the  story  re- 
quired an  unhappy  ending,  and  this  ending  he  gave  it  with 
admirable  force  and  effect.  It  is  on  a  really  fine  and  touch- 
ing scene  that  the  curtain  at  last  falls. 

W.  L.  C. 

April  1897. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  My  oath  was  registered  in  thunder,  and  in  streams  of 

sulphurous  fire " Frontispiece 

" '  There  in  the  gloom ! '  said  the  pilot,  pointing  to  the 

darkest  quarter  of  the  horizon  " Poge  84 

"  The  remnants  of  the  hull  floated  upon  the  water"     .     .        "     351 

OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  He  swept  the  natives  off  the  raft " Page    16 

The  Belgian  Beggars "150 

"  I  looked  round  :  it  was  a  female "     .     ,  "     241 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 


CHAPTER  I 

ABOUT  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  out- 
skirts of  the  small  but  fortified  town  of  Terneuse,  situated  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  Scheldt,  and  nearly  opposite  to  the  island 
of  Walcheren,  there  was  to  be  seen  in  advance  of  a  few  other 
even  more  humble  tenements,  a  small  but  neat  cottage,  built 
according  to  the  prevailing  taste  of  the  time.  The  outside 
front  had,  some  years  back,  been  painted  of  a  deep  orange,  the 
windows  and  shutters  of  a  vivid  green.  To  about  three  feet 
above  the  surface  of  the  earth,  it  was  faced  alternately  with 
blue  and  white  tiles.  A  small  garden,  of  about  two  rods  of 
our  measure  of  land,  surrounded  the  edifice  ;  and  this  little 
plot  was  flanked  by  a  low  hedge  of  privet,  and  encircled  by  a 
moat  full  of  water,  too  wide  to  be  leaped  with  ease.  Over 
that  part  of  the  moat  which  was  in  front  of  the  cottage-door 
was  a  small  and  narrow  bridge,  with  ornamented  iron  hand- 
rails, for  the  security  of  the  passenger.  But  the  colours, 
originally  so  bright,  with  which  the  cottage  had  been  deco- 
rated, had  now  faded ;  symptoms  of  rapid  decay  were  evident 
in  the  window-sills,  the  door-jambs,  and  other  wooden  parts  of 
the  tenement,  and  many  of  the  white  and  blue  tiles  had  fallen 
down,  and  had  not  been  replaced.  That  much  care  had  once 
been  bestowed  upon  this  little  tenement,  was  as  evident  as  that 
latterly  it  had  been  equally  neglected. 

The  inside  of  the  cottage,  both  on  the  basement  and  the 
floor  above,  was  divided  into  two  larger  rooms  in  front,  and 
two  smaller  behind  ;  the  rooms  in  front  could  only  be  called 
large  in  comparison  with  the  other  two,  as  they  were  little  more 
than  twelve  feet  square,  with  but  one  window  to  each.  The 
1  A 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

upper  floor  was,  as  usual,  appropriated  to  the  bedrooms ;  on 
the  lower,  the  two  smaller  rooms  were  now  used  only  as  a 
wash-house  and  a  lumber-room  ;  while  one  of  the  larger  was 
fitted  up  as  a  kitchen,  and  furnished  with  dressers,  on  which 
the  metal  utensils  for  cookery  shone  clean  and  polished  as 
silver.  The  room  itself  was  scrupulously  neat ;  but  the  fur- 
niture, as  well  as  the  utensils,  were  scanty.  The  boards  of  the 
floor  were  of  a  pure  white,  and  so  clean,  that  you  might  have 
laid  anything  down  without  fear  of  soiling  it.  A  strong  deal 
table,  two  wooden-seated  chairs,  and  a  small  easy  couch,  whicli 
had  been  removed  from  one  of  the  bedrooms  upstairs,  were  all 
the  movables  which  this  room  contained.  The  other  front 
room  had  been  fitted  up  as  a  parlour;  but  what  might  be  the 
style  of  its  furniture  was  now  unknown,  for  no  eye  had  beheld 
the  contents  of  that  room  for  nearly  seventeen  years,  during 
which  it  had  been  hermetically  sealed,  even  to  the  inmates  of 
the  cottage. 

The  kitchen,  which  we  have  described,  was  occupied  by 
two  persons.  One  was  a  woman,  apparently  about  forty  years 
of  age,  but  worn  down  by  pain  and  suffering.  She  had  evidently 
once  possi v,sed  much  beauty:  there  were  still  the  regular  out- 
lines, the  noble  forehead,  and  the  large  dark  eye ;  but  there 
was  a  tenuity  in  her  features,  a  wasted  appearance,  such  as 
to  render  the  flesh  transparent ;  her  brow,  when  she  mused, 
would  sink  into  deep  wrinkles,  premature  though  they  were ; 
and  the  occasional  flashing  of  her  eyes  strongly  impressed  you 
with  the  idea  of  insanity.  There  appeared  to  be  some  deep- 
seated,  irremovable,  hopeless  cause  of  anguish,  never  for  one 
moment  permitted  to  be  absent  from  her  memory :  a  chronic 
oppression,  fixed  and  graven  there,  only  to  be  removed  by 
death.  She  was  dressed  in  the  widow's  coif  of  the  time;  but 
although  clean  and  neat,  her  garments  were  faded  from  long 
wear.  She  was  seated  upon  the  small  couch  which  we  have 
mentioned,  evidently  brought  down  as  a  relief  to  her,  in  her 
declining  state. 

On  the  deal  table  in  the  centre  of  the  room  sat  the  other 
person,  a  stout,  fair-haired,  florid  youth  of  nineteen  or  twenty 
years  old.  His  features  were  handsome  and  bold,  and  his 
frame  powerful  to  excess;  his  eye  denoted  courage  and  deter- 
mination, and  as  he  carelessly  swung  his  legs,  and  whistled 
an  air  in  an  emphatic  manner,  it  was  impossible  not  to  form 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  idea  that  he  was  a  daring,  adventurous,  and  reckless 
character. 

"  Do  not  go  to  sea,  Philip ;  oh,  promise  me  that,  my  dear, 
dear  child,"  said  the  female,  clasping  her  hands. 

"  And  why  not  go  to  sea,  mother  ?  "  replied  Philip  ;  "  what's 
the  use  of  my  staying  here  to  starve  ? — for,  by  Heaven  !  it's 
little  better.  I  must  do  something  for  myself  and  for  you.  And 
what  else  can  I  do  ?  My  uncle  Vanbrennen  has  offered  to 
take  me  with  him,  and  will  give  me  good  wages.  Then  I  shall 
live  happily  on  board,  and  my  earnings  will  be  sufficient  for 
your  support  at  home." 

"  Philip — Philip,  hear  me.  I  shall  die  if  you  leave  me. 
Whom  have  I  in  the  world  but  you  ?  O  my  child.,  as  you  love 
me,  and  I  know  you  do  love  me,  Philip,  don't  leave  me ;  but 
if  you  will,  at  all  events  do  not  go  to  sea." 

Philip  gave  no  immediate  reply ;  he  whistled  for  a  few 
seconds,  while  his  mother  wept. 

"  Is  it,"  said  he  at  last,  "  because  my  father  was  drowned  at 
sea,  that  you  beg  so  hard,  mother  ?  " 

"  Oh  no — no  !  "  exclaimed  the  sobbing  woman.  "  Would 
to  God ' 

"  Would  to  God  what,  mother  ?  " 

"  Nothing — nothing.  Be  merciful — be  merciful,  O  God  ! " 
replied  the  mother,  sliding  from  her  seat  on  the  couch,  and 
kneeling  by  the  side  of  it,  in  which  attitude  she  remained  for 
some  time  in  fervent  prayer.  At  last  she  resumed  her  seat, 
and  her  face  wore  an  aspect  of  more  composure. 

Philip,  who  during  this  had  remained  silent  and  thought- 
ful, again  addressed  his  mother. 

"  Look  ye,  mother.  You  ask  me  to  stay  on  shore  with  you, 
and  starve — rather  hard  conditions ;  now  hear  what  I  have  to 
say.  That  room  opposite  has  been  shut  up  ever  since  I  can 
remember — why,  you  will  never  tell  me  ;  but  once  I  heard  you 
say,  when  we  were  without  bread,  and  with  no  prospect  of  my 
uncle's  return — you  were  then  half  frantic,  mother,  as  you 
know  you  sometimes  are — 

"  Well,  Philip,  what  did  you  hear  me  say  ?  "  inquired  his 
mother,  with  tremulous  anxiety. 

"You  said,  mother,  that  there  was  money  in  that  room 
•which  would  save  us ;  and  then  you  screamed  and  raved,  and 
said  that  you  preferred  death.  Now,  mother,  what  is  there  in 
I 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

that  chamber,  and  why  has  it  been  so  long  shut  up  ?  Either  1 
know  that,  or  I  go  to  sea." 

At  the  commencement  of  this  address  of  Philip,  his  mother 
appeared  to  be  transfixed,  and  motionless  as  a  statue  ;  gradu- 
ally her  lips  separated,  and  her  eyes  glared ;  she  seemed  to 
have  lost  the  power  of  reply ;  she  put  her  hand  to  her  right 
side,  as  if  to  compress  it,  then  both  her  hands,  as  if  to  relieve 
herself  from  excruciating  torture  ;  at  last  she  sank  with  her 
head  forward,  and  the  blood  poured  out  of  her  mouth. 

Philip  sprang  from  the  table  to  her  assistance,  and  prevented 
her  from  falling  on  the  floor.  He  laid  her  on  the  couch, 
watching  with  alarm  the  continued  effusion. 

"  O  mother  ! — mother,  what  is  this  ?  "  cried  he  at  last,  in 
great  distress. 

For  some  time  his  mother  could  make  him  no  reply ;  she 
turned  further  on  her  side,  that  she  might  not  be  suffocated  by 
the  discharge  from  the  ruptured  vessel,  and  the  snow-white 
planks  of  the  floor  were  soon  crimsoned  with  her  blood. 

"  Speak,  dearest  mother,  if  you  can,"  repeated  Philip,  in 
agony  ;  "  what  shall  I  do  ? — what  shall  I  give  you  ? — God 
Almighty  !  what  is  this  ?  " 

"Death,  my  child,  death !"  at  length  replied  the  poor  woman, 
sinking  into  a  state  of  unconsciousness. 

Philip,  now  much  alarmed,  flew  out  of  the  cottage,  and 
called  the  neighbours  to  his  mother's  assistance.  Two  or  three 
hastened  to  the  call ;  and  as  soon  as  Philip  saw  them  occupied 
in  restoring  his  mother,  he  ran  as  fast  as  he  could  to  the  house 
of  a  medical  man,  who  lived  about  a  mile  off — one  Mynheer 
Poots,  a  little,  miserable,  avaricious  wretch,  but  known  to  be 
very  skilful  in  his  profession.  Philip  found  Poots  at  home, 
and  insisted  upon  his  immediate  attendance. 

"  I  will  come — yes,  most  certainly,"  replied  Poots,  who 
spoke  the  language  but  imperfectly  ;  "  but,  Mynheer  Vander- 
decken,  who  will  pay  me  ?  " 

"  Pay  you  !  my  uncle  will,  directly  that  he  comes  home." 

"  Your  uncle,  de  Skipper  Vanbrennen  :  no,  he  owes  me  four 
guilders,  and  he  has  owed  me  for  a  long  time.  Besides,  his 
ship  may  sink." 

"  He  shall  pay  you  the  four  guilders,  and  for  this  attendance 
also,"  replied  Philip,  in  a  rage  ;  "  come  directly,  while  you  are 
disputing  my  mother  may  be  dead." 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  But,  Mr.  Philip,  I  cannot  come,  now  I  recollect ;  I  have 
to  see  the  child  of  the  burgomaster  at  Terneuse,"  replied 
Mynheer  Foots. 

"Look  you,  Mynheer  Poots,"  exclaimed  Philip,  red  with 
passion ;  "  you  have  but  to  choose, — will  you  go  quietly,  or 
must  I  take  you  there  ?  You'll  not  trifle  with  me." 

Here  Mynheer  Poots  was  under  considerable  alarm,  for  the 
character  of  Philip  Vanderdecken  was  well  known. 

"  I  will  come  by-and-by,  Mynheer  Philip,  if  I  can." 

"You'll  come  now,  you  wretched  old  miser,"  exclaimed 
Philip,  seizing  hold  of  the  little  man  by  the  collar,  and  pulling 
him  out  of  his  door. 

"  Murder  !  murder ! "  cried  Poots,  as  he  lost  his  legs,  and 
was  dragged  along  by  the  impetuous  young  man. 

Philip  stopped,  for  he  perceived  that  Poots  was  black  in 
the  face. 

"  Must  I  then  choke  you,  to  make  you  go  quietly  ?  for,  hear 
me,  go  you  shall,  alive  or  dead." 

"  Well,  then,"  replied  Poots,  recovering  himself,  "  I  will  go, 
but  I'll  have  you  in  prison  to-night;  and,  as  for  your  mother, 
I'll  not — no,  that  I  will  not — Mynheer  Philip,  depend  upon  it." 

"Mark  me,  Mynheer  Poots,"  replied  Philip,  "as  sure  as 
there  is  a  God  in  heaven,  if  you  do  not  come  with  me,  I'll 
choke  you  now ;  and  when  you  arrive,  if  you  do  not  your 
best  for  my  poor  mother,  I'll  murder  you  there.  You  know 
that  I  always  do  what  I  say,  so  now  take  my  advice,  come 
along  quietly,  and  you  shall  certainly  be  paid,  and  well  paid 
— if  I  sell  my  coat." 

This  last  observation  of  Philip,  perhaps,  had  more  effect 
than  even  his  threats.  Poots  was  a  miserable  little  atom, 
and  like  a  child  in  the  powerful  grasp  of  the  young  man. 
The  doctor's  tenement  was  isolated,  and  he  could  obtain  no 
assistance  until  within  a  hundred  yards  of  Vanderdecken's 
cottage ;  so  Mynheer  Poots  decided  that  he  would  go — first, 
because  Philip  had  promised  to  pay  him,  and  secondly,  because 
he  could  not  help  it. 

This  point  being  settled,  Philip  and  Mynheer  Poots  made 
all  haste  to  the  cottage ;  and  on  their  arrival,  they  found  his 
mother  still  in  the  arms  of  two  of  her  female  neighbours,  who 
were  bathing  her  temples  with  vinegar.  She  was  in  a  state 
of  consciousness,  but  she  could  not  speak,  Poots  ordered  her 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

to  be  carried  upstairs  and  put  to  bed,  and  pouring  some  acids 
down  her  throat,  hastened  away  with  Philip  to  procure  the 
necessary  remedies. 

"  You  will  give  your  mother  that  directly,  Mynheer  Philip," 
said  Pools,  putting  a  phial  into  his  hand ;  "  I  will  now  go  to 
the  child  of  the  burgomaster,  and  will  afterwards  come  back 
to  your  cottage." 

"  Don't  deceive  me,"  said  Philip,  with  a  threatening  look. 

"No,  no,  Mynheer  Philip,  I  would  not  trust  to  your  uncle 
Vanbrennen  for  payment,  but  you  have  promised,  and  I  know 
that  you  always  keep  your  word.  In  one  hour  I  will  be  with 
your  mother  ;  but  you  yourself  must  now  be  quick." 

Philip  hastened  home.  After  the  potion  had  been  adminis- 
tered, the  bleeding  was  wholly  stopped ;  and  in  half-an-hour 
his  mother  could  express  her  wishes  in  a  whisper.  When  the 
little  doctor  arrived,  he  carefully  examined  his  patient,  and 
then  went  downstairs  with  her  son  into  the  kitchen. 

"Mynheer  Philip,"  said  Foots,  "by  Allah!  I  have  done 
my  best,  but  I  must  tell  you  that  I  have  little  hopes  of  your 
mother  rising  from  her  bed  again.  She  may  live  one  day  or 
two  days,  but  not  more.  It  is  not  my  fault,  Mynheer  Philip," 
continued  Poots,  in  a  deprecating  tone. 

"  No,  no ;  it  is  the  will  of  Heaven,"  replied  Philip  mourn- 
fully. 

"  And  you  will  pay  me,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken  ? "  con- 
tinued the  doctor,  after  a  short  pause. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Philip,  in  a  voice  of  thunder,  and  starting  from 
a  reverie.  After  a  moment's  silence,  the  doctor  recommenced  : 

"Shall  I  come  to-morrow,  Mynheer  Philip?  You  know 
that  will  be  a  charge  of  another  guilder :  it  is  of  no  use  to 
throw  away  money  or  time  either." 

"Come  to-morrow,  come  every  hour,  charge"  what  you 
please ;  you  shall  certainly  be  paid,"  replied  Philip,  curling 
his  lip  with  contempt. 

"Well,  it  is  as  you  please.  As  soon  as  she  is  dead,  the 
cottage  and  the  furniture  will  be  yours,  ana  you  will  sell 
them,  of  course.  Yes,  I  will  come.  You  will  have  plenty  of 
money.  Mynheer  Philip,  I  would  like  the  first  offer  of  the 
cottage,  if  it  is  to  let" 

Philip  raised  his  arm  in  the  air  as  if  tc*  crush   Mynheer 
Foots,  who  retreated  to  the  corner. 
6 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  I  did  not  mean  until  your  mother  was  buried/'  said  Foots, 
in  a  coaxing  tone. 

"  Go,  wretch,  go !  "  said  Philip,  covering  his  face  with  his 
hands,  as  he  sank  down  upon  the  blood-stained  couch. 

After  a  short  interval,  Philip  Vanderdecken  returned  to  the 
bedside  of  his  mother,  whom  he  found  much  better ;  and  the 
neighbours,  having  their  own  affairs  to  attend  to,  left  them 
alone.  Exhausted  with  the  loss  of  blood,  the  poor  woman  slum- 
bered for  many  hours,  during  which  she  never  let  go  the  hand 
of  Philip,  who  watched  her  breathing  in  mournful  meditation. 

It  was  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  the  widow 
awoke.  She  had  in  a  great  degree  recovered  her  voice,  and 
thus  she  addressed  her  son  : 

"  My  dear,  my  impetuous  boy,  and  have  I  detained  you  here 
a  prisoner  so  long?" 

"  My  own  inclination  detained  me,  mother.  I  leave  you  not 
to  others  until  you  are  up  and  well  again." 

"That,  Philip,  I  shall  never  be.  I  feel  that  death  claims 
me ;  and  oh,  my  son,  were  it  not  for  you,  how  should  I  quit 
this  world  rejoicing !  I  have  long  been  dying,  Philip — and 
long,  long  have  I  prayed  for  death." 

"  And  why  so,  mother  ? "  replied  Philip  bluntly  ;  "  I've 
done  my  best." 

"  You  have,  my  child,  you  have :  and  may  God  bless  you 
for  it.  Often  have  I  seen  you  curb  your  fiery  temper — restrain 
yourself  when  justified  in  wrath — to  spare  a  mother's  feelings. 
'Tis  now  some  days  that  even  hunger  has  not  persuaded  you  to 
disobey  your  mother.  And,  Philip,  you  must  have  thought 
me  mad  or  foolish  to  insist  so  long,  and  yet  to  give  no  reason. 
I'll  speak — again — directly." 

The  widow  turned  her  head  upon  the  pillow,  and  remained 
quiet  for  some  minutes  ;  then,  as  if  revived,  she  resumed  : 

"  I  believe  I  have  been  mad  at  times — have  I  not,  Philip  ? 
And  God  knows  I  have  had  a  secret  in  my  heart  enough  to 
drive  a  wife  to  frenzy.  It  has  oppressed  me  day  and  night, 
worn  my  mind,  impaired  my  reason,  and  now,  at  last,  thank 
Heaven !  it  has  overcome  this  mortal  frame  :  the  blow  is 
struck,  Philip — I'm  sure  it  is.  I  wait  but  to  tell  you  all — 
and  yet  I  would  not — 'twill  turn  your  brain  as  it  has  turned 
mine,  Philip." 

"  Mother,"  replied  Philip  earnestly,  "  I  conjure  you,  let  me 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP  .    . 

hear  this  killing  secret.     Be  heaven  or  hell  mixed  up  with  it, 
I  fear  not.     Heaven  will  not  hurt  me,  and  Satan  I  defy." 

"I  know  thy  bold,  proud  spirit,  Philip— thy  strength  of 
mind.  If  any  one  could  bear  the  load  of  such  a  dreadful  tale, 
thou  couldst.  My  brain,  alas !  was  far  too  weak  for  it ;  and  I 
see  it  is  my  duty  to  tell  it  to  thee." 

The  widow  paused  as  her  thoughts  reverted  to  that  which 
she  had  to  confide ;  for  a  few  minutes  the  tears  ruined  down 
her  hollow  cheeks ;  she  then  appeared  to  have  summoned 
resolution,  and  to  have  regained  strength. 

"  Philip,  it  is  of  your  father  I  would  speak.  It  is  supposed 
—that  he  was — drowned  at  sea." 

"  And  was  he  not,  mother  ?  "  replied  Philip,  with  surprise. 
"  Oh  no ! " 

"  But  he  has  long  been  dead,  mother  ?  " 
«No — yes — and  yet — no,"  said  the  widow,  covering  her  eyes. 
Her  brain  wanders,  thought  Philip,  but  he  spoke  again  : 
"  Then  where  is  he,  mother  ?  " 

The  widow  raised  herself,  and  a  tremor  visibly  ran  through 
her  whole  frame,  as  she  replied — 
"  IN  LIVING  JUDGMENT." 

The  poor  woman  then  sank  down  again  upon  the  pillow, 
and  covered  her  head  with  the  bedclothes,  as  if  she  would  have 
hid  herself  from  her  own  memory.  Philip  was  so  much  per- 
plexed and  astounded,  that  he  could  make  no  reply.  A  silence 
of  some  minutes  ensued,  when,  no  longer  able  to  bear  the 
agony  of  suspense,  Philip  faintly  whispered — 

"The  secret,  mother,  the  secret ;  quick,  let  me  hear  it." 
"  I  can  now  tell  all,  Philip,"  replied  his  mother,  in  a  solemn 
tone  of  voice.  "  Hear  me,  my  son.  Your  father's  disposition 
was  but  too  like  your  own  ; — oh,  may  his  cruel  fate  be  a  lesson 
to  you,  my  dear,  dear  child !  He  was  a  bold,  a  daring,  and, 
they  say,  a  first-rate  seaman.  He  was  not  born  here,  but  in 
Amsterdam ;  but  he  would  not  live  there,  because  he  still 
adhered  to  the  Catholic  religion.  The  Dutch,  you  know, 
Philip,  are  heretics,  according  to  our  creed.  It  is  now 
seventeen  years  or  more  that  he  sailed  for  India,  in  his  fine 
ship  the  Amsterdammer,  with  a  valuable  cargo,  It  was  his 
third  voyage  to  India,  Philip,  and  it  was  to  have  been,  if  it  had 
so  pleased  God,  his  last,  for  he  had  purchased  that  good  ship 
irith  only  part  of  his  earnings,  and  one  more  voyage  would 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

have  made  his  fortune.  Oh  !  how  often  did  we  talk  over  what 
we  would  do  upon  his  return,  and  how  these  plans  for  the 
future  consoled  me  at  the  idea  of  his  absence,  for  I  loved  him 
dearly,  Philip,  —he  was  always  good  and  kind  to  me !  and 
after  he  had  sailed,  how  I  hoped  for  his  return  !  The  lot  of  a 
sailor's  wife  is  not  to  be  envied.  Alone  and  solitary  for  so 
many  months,  watching  the  long  wick  of  the  candle,  and 
listening  to  the  howling  of  the  wind — foreboding  evil  and 
accident — wreck  and  widowhood.  He  had  been  gone  about 
six  months,  Philip,  and  there  was  still  a  long  drear)'  year  to 
wait  before  I  could  expect  him  back.  One  night,  you,  my 
child,  were  fast  asleep;  you  were  my  only  solace — my  comfort 
in  my  loneliness.  I  had  been  watching  over  you  in  your 
slumbers :  you  smiled  and  half  pronounced  the  name  of 
mother ;  and  at  last  I  kissed  your  unconscious  lips,  and  I 
knelt  and  prayed — prayed  for  God's  blessing  on  you,  my  child, 
and  upon  him  too — little  thinking  at  the  time  that  he  was  so 
horribly,  so  fearfully  CURSED." 

The  widow  paused  for  breath,  and  then  resumed.  Philip 
could  not  speak.  His  lips  were  sundered,  and  his  eyes  riveted 
upon  his  mother,  as  he  devoured  her  words. 

"  I  left  you  and  went  downstairs  into  that  room,  Philip, 
which  since  that  dreadful  night  has  never  been  reopened.  I 
sate  me  down  and  read,  for  the  wind  was  strong,  and  when  the 
gale  blows,  a  sailor's  wife  can  seldom  sleep.  It  was  past  mid- 
night, and  the  rain  poured  down.  I  felt  unusual  fear — I  knew 
not  why.  I  rose  from  the  couch  and  dipped  my  finger  in  the 
blessed  water,  and  I  crossed  myself.  A  violent  gust  of  wind 
roared  round  the  house,  and  alarmed  me  still  more.  I  hud  a 
painful,  horrible  foreboding  ;  when,  of  a  sudden,  the  windows 
and  window-shutters  were  all  blown  in,  the  light  was  extin- 
guished, and  I  was  left  in  utter  darkness.  I  screamed  with 
fright ;  but  at  last  I  recovered  myself,  and  was  proceeding 
towards  the  window  that  I  might  reclose  it,  when  whom 
should  I  behold,  slowly  entering  at  the  casement,  but — your 
father,— Philip !— Yes,  Philip,— it  was  your  father  !  " 

"  Merciful  God  ! "  muttered  Philip,  in  a  low  tone  almost 
subdued  into  a  whisper 

"  I  knew  not  what  to  think, — he  was  in  the  room  ;  and 
although  the  darkness  was  intense,  his  form  and  features  were 
as  clear  and  as  defined  as  it  it  were  noonday.  Fear  would 
8 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

have  inclined  me  to  recoil  from, — his  loved  presence  to  fly 
towards  him.  I  remained  on  the  spot  where  I  was,  choked 
with  agonising  sensations.  When  he  had  entered  the  room, 
the  windows  and  shutters  closed  of  themselves,  and  the  candle 
was  relighted — then  I  thought  it  was  his  apparition,  and  I 
fainted  on  the  floor. 

"  When  I  recovered,  I  found  myself  on  the  couch,  and  per- 
ceived that  a  cold  (oh,  how  cold  !)  and  dripping  hand  was 
clasped  in  mine.  This  reassured  me,  and  I  forgot  the  super- 
natural signs  which  accompanied  his  appearance.  I  imagined 
that  he  had  been  unfortunate,  and  had  returned  home.  I 
opened  my  eyes,  and  beheld  my  loved  husband  and  threw 
myself  into  his  arms.  His  clothes  were  saturated  with  the 
rain  :  I  felt  as  if  I  had  embraced  ice — but  nothing  can  check 
the  warmth  of  a  woman's  love,  Philip.  He  received  my  caresses, 
but  he  caressed  not  again  :  he  spoke  not,  but  looked  thought- 
ful and  unhappy.  'William — William,'  cried  I ;  'speak,  Van- 
derdecken,  speak  to  your  dear  Catherine/ 

" '  I  will/  replied  he  solemnly,  '  for  my  time  is  short/ 

" f  No,  no,  you  must  not  go  to  sea  again  :  you  have  lost 
your  vessel,  but  you  are  safe.  Have  I  not  you  again  ?  ' 

" '  Alas !  no — be  not  alarmed,  but  listen,  for  my  time  is 
short.  I  have  not  lost  my  vessel,  Catherine,  BUT  I  HAVE 

LOST Make  no  reply,  but  listen;  I  am  not  dead,  nor 

ye$  am  I  alive.  I  hover  between  this  world  and  the  world  of 
spirits.  Mark  me. 

"  '  For  nine  weeks  did  I  try  to  force  my  passage  against  the 
elements  round  the  stormy  Cape,  but  without  success ;  and  I 
swore  terribly.  For  nine  weeks  more  did  I  carry  sail  against 
the  adverse  winds  and  currents,  and  yet  could  gain  no  ground ; 
and  then  I  blasphemed— ay,  terribly  blasphemed.  Yet  still  I 
persevered.  The  crew,  worn  out  with  long  fatigue,  would  have 
had  me  return  to  the  Table  Bay ;  but  I  refused ;  nay,  more,  I 
became  a  murderer— unintentionally,  it  is  true,  but  still  a  mur- 
derer. The  pilot  opposed  me,  and  persuaded  the  men  to  bind 
me,  and  in  the  excess  of  my  fury,  when  he  took  me  by  the  collar, 
I  struck  at  him  ;  he  reeled  ;  and,  with  the  sudden  lurch  of  the 
vessel,  he  fell  overboard,  and  sank.  Even  this  fearful  death 
did  not  restrain  me  ;  and  I  swore  by  the  fragment  of  the  Holy 
Cross  preserved  in  that  relic  now  hanging  round  your  neck,  that 
I  would  gain  my  point  in  defiance  of  storm  and  seas,  of  lightning, 
10 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

of  heaven,  or  of  hell,  even  if  I  should  beat  about  until  the  Day 
of  Judgment 

" '  My  oath  was  registered  in  thunder,  and  in  streams  of 
sulphurous  fire.  The  hurricane  burst  upon  the  ship,  the  canvas 
fiew  away  in  ribbons  ;  mountains  of  seas  swept  over  us,  and  in 
the  centre  of  a  deep  o'erhanging  cloud,  which  shrouded  all  in 
utter  darkness,  were  written  in  letters  of  livid  flame,  these 
words — UNTIL  THE  DAY  OF  JUDGMENT  ! 

" '  Listen  to  me,  Catherine,  my  time  is  short.  One  Hope 
alone  remains,  and  for  this  am  I  permitted  to  come  here. 
Take  this  letter.'  He  put  a  sealed  paper  on  the  table.  '  Read 
it,  Catherine,  dear,  and  try  if  you  can  assist  me.  Read  it,  and 
now  farewell — my  time  is  come.' 

"  Again  the  window  and  window-shutters  burst  open — again 
the  light  was  extinguished,  and  the  form  of  mv  husband  was, 
as  it  were,  wafted  in  the  dark  expanse.  I  started  up  and 
followed  him  with  outstretched  arms  and  frantic  screams  as  he 
sailed  through  the  window ;  my  glaring  eyes  beheld  his  form 
borne  away  like  lightning  on  the  wings  of  the  wild  gale,  till  it 
was  lost  as  a  speck  of  light,  and  then  it  disappeared.  Again 
the  windows  closed,  the  light  burned,  and  I  was  left  alone  ! 

"  Heaven,  have  mercy  !  My  brain  ! — my  brain  ! — Philip !  — 
Philip!"  shrieked  the  poor  woman  ;  "don't  leave  me — don't 
— don't,  pray  don't !  " 

During  these  exclamations  the  frantic  widow  had  raised 
herself  from  the  bed,  and,  at  the  last,  had  fallen  into  the  arms 
of  her  son.  She  remained  there  some  minutes  without  motion. 
After  a  time  Philip  felt  alarmed  at  her  long  quiescence  ;  he  laid 
her  gently  down  upon  the  bed,  and  as  he  did  so  her  head  fell 
back — her  eyes  were  turned — the  widow  Vanderdecken  was 
no  more. 


CHAPTER  II 

PHILIP  VANDERDECKEN,  strong  as  he  was  in  mental 
courage,  was  almost  paralysed  by  the  shock  when  he  discovered 
that  his  mother's  spirit  had  fled  ;  and  for  some  time  he  remained 
by  the  side  of  the  bed,  with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  corpse, 
and  his  mind  in  a  state  of  vacuity.  Gradually  he  recovered 
himself;  he  rose,  smoothed  down  the  pillow,  closed  her  eye- 
11 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

lids,  and  then  clasping  his  hands,  the  tears  trickled  down  his 
manly  cheeks.  He  impressed  a  solemn  kiss  upon  the  pale 
white  forehead  of  the  departed,  and  drew  the  curtains  round 
the  bed. 

"  Poor  mother ! "  said  he  sorrowfully,  as  he  completed  his 
task,  "  at  length  thou  hast  found  rest, — but  thou  hast  left  thy 
son  a  bitter  legacy." 

And  as  Philip's  thoughts  reverted  to  what  had  passed,  the 
dreadful  narrative  whirled  in  his  imagination  and  scathed  his 
brain.  He  raised  his  hands  to  his  temples,  compressed  them 
with  force,  and  tried  to  collect  his  thoughts,  that  he  might 
decide  upon  what  measures  he  should  take.  He  felt  that  he 
had  no  time  to  indulge  his  grief.  His  mother  was  in  peace  : 
but  his  father — where  was  he  ? 

He  recalled  his  mother's  words — "One  hope  alone  re- 
mained." Then,  there  was  hope.  His  father  had  laid  a  paper 
on  the  table — could  it  be  there  now?  Yes,  it  must  be;  his 
mother  had  not  had  the  courage  to  take  it  up.  There  was 
hope  in  that  paper,  and  it  had  lain  unopened  for  more  than 
seventeen  years. 

Philip  Vanderdecken  resolved  that  he  would  examine  the 
fatal  chamber — at  once  he  would  know  the  worst.  Should  he 
do  it  now,  or  wait  till  daylight  ? — But  the  key,  where  was  it  ? 
His  eyes  rested  upon  an  old  japanned  cabinet  in  the  room  : 
he  had  never  seen  his  mother  open  it  in  his  presence :  it  was 
the  only  likely  place  of  concealment  that  he  was  aware  of. 
Prompt  in  all  his  decisions,  he  took  up  the  candle,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  examine  it.  It  was  not  locked ;  the  doors  swung 
open,  and  drawer  after  drawer  was  examined,  but  Philip  dis- 
covered not  the  object  of  his  search  ;  again  and  again  did  he 
open  the  drawers,  but  they  were  all  empty.  It  occurred  to 
Philip  that  there  might  be  secret  drawers,  and  he  examined  for 
some  time  in  vain.  At  last  he  took  out  all  the  drawers,  and 
laid  them  on  the  floor,  and  lifting  the  cabinet  off  its  stand  he 
shook  it.  A  rattling  sound  in  one  corner  told  him  that  in  all 
probability  the  key  was  there  concealed.  He  renewed  his 
attempts  to  discover  how  to  gain  it,  but  in  vain.  Daylight  now 
streamed  through  the  casements,  and  Philip  had  not  desisted 
from  his  attempts.  At  last,  wearied  out,  he  resolved  to  force 
the  back  panel  of  the  cabinet ;  he  descended  to  the  kitchen, 
and  returned  with  a  small  chopping-knife  and  hammer,  and  was 
12 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

on  his  knees  busily  employed  forcing  out  the  panel,  when  ft 
hand  was  placed  upon  his  shoulder. 

Philip  started  :  he  had  been  so  occupied  with  his  search  and 
his  wild  chasing  thoughts,  that  he  had  not  heard  the  sound  of 
an  approaching  footstep.  He  looked  up  and  beheld  the  Father 
Seysen,  the  priest  of  the  little  parish,  with  his  eyes  sternly 
fixed  upon  him.  The  good  man  had  been  informed  of  the 
dangerous  state  of  the  widow  Vanderdecken,  and  had  risen  at 
daylight  to  visit  and  afford  her  spiritual  comfort. 

"  How  now,  my  son,"  said  the  priest ;  "fearest  thou  not  to 
disturb  thy  mother's  rest  ?  and  wouldst  thou  pilfer  and  purloin 
even  before  she  is  in  her  grave  ?  " 

"  I  fear  not  to  disturb  my  mother's  rest,  good  father,"  replied 
Philip,  rising  on  his  feet,  "  for  she  now  rests  with  the  blessed. 
Neither  do  I  pilfer  nor  purloin.  It  is  not  gold  I  seek,  although 
if  gold  there  were,  that  gold  would  now  be  mine.  I  seek  but 
a  key,  long  hidden,  I  believe,  within  this  secret  drawer,  the 
opening  of  which  is  a  mystery  beyond  my  art." 

"Thy  mother  is  no  more,  sayest  thou,  my  son?  and  dead 
without  receiving  the  rites  of  our  most  holy  Church  !  Why 
didst  thou  not  send  for  me  ?  " 

"She  died,  good  father,  suddenly,  most  suddenly,  in  these 
arms,  about  two  hours  ago.  I  fear  not  for  her  soul,  although 
I  can  but  grieve  you  were  not  at  her  side." 

The  priest  gently  opened  the  curtains,  and  looked  upon  the 
corpse.  He  sprinkled  holy  water  on  the  bed,  and  for  a  short 
time  his  lips  were  seen  to  move  in  silent  prayer.  He  then 
turned  round  to  Philip. 

"Why  do  I  see  thee  thus  employed?  and  why  so  anxious 
to  obtain  that  key  ?  A  mother's  death  should  call  forth  filial 
tears  and  prayers  for  her  repose.  Yet  are  thine  eyes  dry,  and 
thou  art  employed  upon  an  indifferent  search  while  yet  the 
tenement  is  warm  which  but  now  held  her  spirit.  This  is  not 
seemly,  Philip.  What  is  the  key  thou  seekest  ?  " 

"  Father,  I  have  no  time  for  tears — no  time  to  spare  for  grief 
or  lamentation.  I  have  much  to  do  and  more  to  think  of  than 
thought  can  well  embrace.  That  I  loved  my  mother,  you. 
know  well." 

"  But  the  key  thou  seekest,  Philip  ?  " 

"  Father,  it  is  the  key  of  a  chamber  which  has  not  been 

unlocked  for  years,  which  I  must — will  open  even  if " 

13 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"If  what,  my  son?" 

"  I  was  about  to  say  what  I  should  not  have  said.  Forgive 
me,  father ;  I  meant  that  I  must  search  that  chamber." 

"  I  have  long  heard  of  that  same  chamber  being  closed ; 
and  that  thy  mother  would  not  explain  wherefore,  I  know 
well,  for  I  have  asked  her,  and  have  been  denied.  Nay,  when 
as  in  duty  bound  I  pressed  the  question,  I  found  her  reason 
was  disordered  by  my  importunity,  and  therefore  I  abandoned 
the  attempt.  Some  heavy  weight  was  on  thy  mother's  mind, 
my  son,  yet  would  she  never  confess  or  trust  it  with  me.  Tell 
me,  before  she  died,  hadst  thou  this  secret  from  her  ?  " 

"  I  had,  most  holy  father." 

"  Wouldst  thou  not  feel  comfort  if  thou  didst  confide  to  me, 
my  son  ?  I  might  advise,  assist — 

"Father,.!  would  indeed — I  conld  confide  it  to  thee,  and 
ask  for  thy  assistance — I  know  'tis  not  from  curious  feeling 
thou  wouldst  have  it,  but  from  a  better  motive.  But  of  that 
which  has  been  told  it  is  not  yet  manifest  whether  it  is  as 
my  poor  mother  says,  or  but  the  phantom  of  a  heated  brain. 
Should  it,  indeed,  be  true,  fain  would  I  share  the  burthen 
with  you-o— yet  little  you  might  thank  me  for  the  heavy  load. 
But  no — at  least  not  now — it  must  not,  cannot  be  revealed. 
I  must  do  my  work — enter  that  hated  room  alone.". 

"  Fearest  thou  not  ?  " 

"Father,  I  fear  nothing.  I  have  a  duty  to  perform — a 
dreadful  one,  I  grant ;  but  I  pray  thee,  ask  no  more  ;  for, 
like  my  poor  mother,  I  feel  as  if  the  probing  of  the  wound 
would  half  unseat  my  reason." 

"  I  will  not  press  thee  further,  Philip.  The  time  may  come 
when  I  may  prove  of  service.  Farewell,  my  child  ;  but  I  pray 
thee  to  discontinue  thy  unseemly  labour,  for  I  must  send  in 
the  neighbours  to  perform  the  duties  to  thy  departed  mother, 
whose  soul  I  trust  is  with  its  God." 

The  priest  looked  at  Philip;  he  perceived  that  his  thoughts 
were  elsewhere;  there  was  a  vacancy  and  appearance  of  mental 
stupefaction,  and  as  he  turned  away,  the  good  man  shook  his 
head. 

"  He  is  right,"  thought  Philip,  when  once  more  alone ;  and 
he  took  up  the  cabinet,  and  placed  it  upon  the  stand.  "  A 
few  hours  more  can  make  no  difference :  I  will  lay  me  down, 
for  my  head  is  giddy." 

14 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Philip  went  into  the  adjoining  room,  threw  himself  upon 
his  bed,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was  in  a  sleep  as  sound  as  that 
permitted  to  the  wretch  a  few  hours  previous  to  his  execution. 

During  his  slumbers  the  neighbours  had  come  in,  and  had 
prepared  everything  for  the  widow's  interment.  They  had 
been  careful  not  to  wake  the  son,  for  they  held  as  sacred 
the  sleep  of  those  who  must  wake  up  to  sorrow.  Among 
others,  soon  after  the  hour  of  noon,  arrived  Mynheer  Foots  ; 
he  had  been  informed  of  the  death  of  the  widow,  but  having 
a  spare  hour,  he  thought  he  might  as  well  call,  as  it  would 
raise  his  charges  by  another  guilder.  He  first  went  into  the 
room  where  the  body  lay,  and  from  thence  he  proceeded  to 
the  chamber  of  Philip,  and  shook  him  by  the  shoulder. 

Philip  awoke,  and,  sitting  up,  perceived  the  doctor  standing 
by  him. 

"  Well,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,"  commenced  the  unfeeling 
little  man,  "  so  it's  all  over.  I  knew  it  would  be  so  ;  and  re- 
collect you  owe  me  now  another  guilder,  and  you  promised 
faithfully  to  pay  me;  altogether,  with  the  potion, it  will  be  three 
guilders  and  a  half — that  is,  provided  you  return  my  phial." 

Philip,  who  at  first  waking  was  confused,  gradually  recovered 
his  senses  during  this  address. 

"You  shall  have  your  three  guilders, and  a  half,  and  your 
phial  to  boot,  Mr.  Poots,"  replied  he,  as  he  rose  from  off  the 
bed. 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  I  know  you  mean  to  pay  me — if  you  can.  But 
look  you,  Mynheer  Philip,  it  may  be  some  time  before  you  sell 
the  cottage.  You  may  not  find  a  customer.  Now,  I  never 
wish  to  be  hard  upon  people  who  have  no  money,  and  I'll  tell 
you  what  I'll  do.  There  is  a  something  on  your  mother's  neck. 
It  is  of  no  value — none  at  all,  but  to  a  good  Catholic.  To 
help  you  in  your  strait,  I  will  take  that  thing,  and  then  we 
shall  be  quits.  You  will  have  paid  me,  and  there  will  be  an 
end  of  it." 

Philip  listened  calmly  :  he  knew  to  what  the  little  miser  had 
referred — the  relic  on  his  mother's  neck  ;  that  very  relic  upon 
which  his  father  swore  the  fatal  oath.  He  felt  that  millions 
of  guilders  would  not  have  induced  him  to  part  with  it. 

"  Leave  the  house,"  answered  he  abruptly.  "  Leave  it 
immediately.  Your  money  shall  be  paid." 

Now,  Mynheer  Poots,  in  the  first  place,  knew  that  the 
15 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

setting  of  the  relic,  which  was  a  square  frame  of  pure  gold,  was 
worth  much  more  than  the  sum  due  to  him  :  he  also  knew  that 
a  large  price  had  been  paid  for  the  relic  itself,  and  as  at  that 
time  such  a  relic  was  considered  very  valuable,  he  had  no 
doubt  but  that  it  would  again  fetch  a  considerable  sura. 
Tempted  by  the  sight  of  it  when  he  entered  the  chamber  of 
death,  he  had  taken  it  from  the  neck  of  the  corpse,  and  it  was 
then  actually  concealed  in  his  bosom ;  so  he  replied — 

"  My  offer  is  a  good  one,  Mynheer  Philip,  and  you  had 
better  take  it.  Of  what  use  is  such  trash  ?  " 

"  I  tell  you  no,"  cried  Philip,  in  a  rage. 

"Well  then,  you  will  let  me  have  it  in  my  possession  till  I 
am  paid,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken — that  is  but  fair.  I  must  not 
lose  my  money.  When  you  bring  me  my  three  guilders  and 
a  half  and  the  phial,  I  will  return  it  to  you." 

Philip's  indignation  was  now  without  bounds.  He  seized 
Mynheer  Poots  by  the  collar,  and  threw  him  out  of  the  door. 

"Away  immediately,"  cried  he,  "or  by " 

There  was  no  occasion  for  Philip  to  finish  the  imprecation. 
The  doctor  had  hastened  away  with  such  alarm,  that  he  fell 
down  half  the  steps  of  the  staircase,  and  was  limping  away 
across  the  bridge.  He  almost  wished  that  the  relic  had  not 
been  in  his  possession ;  but  his  sudden  retreat  had  prevented 
him,  even  if  so  inclined,  from  replacing  it  on  the  corpse. 

The  result  of  this  conversation  naturally  turned  Philip's 
thoughts  to  the  relic,  and  he  went  into  his  mother's  room  to 
take  possession  of  it.  He  opened  the  curtains — the  corpse 
was  laid  out — he  put  forth  his  hand  to  untie  the  black  ribbon.' 
It  was  not  there.  "  Gone  ! "  exclaimed  Philip.  "  They  hardly 

would  have  removed  it — never  would It  must  be  that 

villain  Poots — wretch  !  but  I  will  have  it,  even  if  he  has 
swallowed  it,  though  I  tear  him  limb  from  limb  ! " 

Philip  darted  down  the  stairs,  rushed  out  of  the  house, 
cleared  the  moat  at  one  bound,  and,  without  coat  or  hat,  flew 
away  in  the  direction  of  the  doctor's  lonely  residence.  The 
neighbours  saw  him  as  he  passed  them  like  the  wind  ;  they 
wondered,  and  they  shook  their  heads.  Mynheer  Poots  wa$ 
not  more  than  half-way  to  his  home,  for  he  had  hurt  his  ankle. 
Apprehensive  of  what  might  possibly  take  place,  should  his 
theft  be  discovered,  he  occasionally  looked  behind  him  ;  nt 

length,  to  his  horror,  he  beheld  Philip  Vand,en}ecken.  at  a 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

distance,  bounding  on  in  pursuit  of  him.  Frightened  almost 
out  of  his  senses,  the  wretched  pilferer  hardly  knew  how  to 
act :  to  stop  and  surrender  up  the  stolen  property  was  his  first 
thought,  but  fear  of  Vanderdecken's  violence  prevented  him  ; 
so  he  decided  on  taking  to  his  heels,  thus  hoping  to  gain  his 
house,  and  barricade  himself  in,  by  which  means  he  would  be 
in  a  condition  to  keep  possession  of  what  he  had  stolen,  or  at 
least  make  some  terms  ere  he  restored  it. 

Mynheer  Foots  had  need  to  run  fast,  and  so  he  did,  his  thin 
legs  bearing  his  shrivelled  form  rapidly  over  the  ground ;  but 
Philip,  who,  when  he  witnessed  the  doctor's  attempt  to  escape, 
was  fully  convinced  that  he  was  the  culprit,  redoubled  his 
exertions,  and  rapidly  came  up  with  the  chase.  When  within 
a  hundred  yards  of  his  own  door,  Mynheer  Poots  heard  the 
bounding  steps  of  Philip  gain  upon  him,  and  he  sprang  and 
leaped  in  his  agony.  Nearer  and  nearer  still  the  steps,  until 
at  last  he  heard  the  very  breathing  of  his  pursuer ;  and  Poots 
shrieked  in  his  fear,  like  the  hare  in  the  jaws  of  the  greyhound. 
Philip  was  not  a  yard  from  him  ;  his  arm  was  outstretched, 
when  the  miscreant  dropped  down  paralysed  with  terror ;  and 
the  impetus  of  Vanderdecken  was  so  great,  that  he  passed  over 
his  body,  tripped,  and  after  trying  in  vain  to  recover  his 
equilibrium,  he  fell  and  rolled  over  and  over.  This  saved  the 
little  doctor;  it  was  like  the  double  of  a  hare.  In  a  second 
he  was  again  on  his  legs,  and  before  Philip  could  rise  and 
again  exert  his  speed,  Poots  had  entered  his  door  and  bolted 
it  within.  Philip  was,  however,  determined  to  repossess  the 
important  treasure  ;  and  as  he  panted,  he  cast  his  eyes  around 
to  see  if  any  means  offered  for  his  forcing  his  entrance  into  the 
house.  But  as  the  habitation  of  the  doctor  was  lonely,  every 
precaution  had  been  taken  by  him  to  render  it  secure  against 
robbery ;  the  windows  below  were  well  barricaded  and  secured, 
and  those  on  the  upper  storey  were  too  high  for  any  one  to 
obtain  admittance  by  them. 

We  must  here  observe,  that  although  Mynheer  Poots  was, 
from  his  known  abilities,  in  good  practice,  his  reputation  as  a 
hard-hearted,  unfeeling  miser  was  well  established.  No  one 
was  ever  permitted  to  enter  his  threshold,  nor,  indeed,  did  any 
one  feel  inclined.  He  was  as  isolated  from  his  fellow-creatures 
as  was  his  tenement,  and  was  only  to  be  seen  in  the  chamber 
?f  disease  and  death.  What  his  establishment  consisted  of 
11 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

no  one  knew.  When  he  first  settled  in  the  neighbourhood, 
an  old  decrepit  woman  occasionally  answered  the  knocks  given 
at  the  door  by  those  who  required  the  doctor's  services ;  but 
she  had  been  buried  some  time,  and  ever  since  all  calls  at  the 
door  had  been  answered  by  Mynheer  Foots  in  person,  if  he 
were  at  home,  and  if  not,  there  was  no  reply  to  the  most  im- 
portunate summons.  It  was  then  surmised  that  the  old  man 
lived  entirely  by  himself,  being  too  niggardly  to  pay  for  any 
assistance.  This  Philip  also  imagined  ;  and  as  soon  as  he  had 
recovered  his  breath,  he  began  to  devise  some  scheme  by  which 
he  would  be  enabled  not  only  to  recover  the  stolen  property, 
but  also  to  wreak  a  dire  revenge. 

The  door  was  strong,  and  not  to  be  forced  by  any  means 
which  presented  themselves  to  the  eye  of  Vanderdecken.  For 
a  few  minutes  he  paused  to  consider,  and  as  he  reflected,  so 
did  his  anger  cool  down,  and  he  decided  that  it  would  be  suffi- 
cient to  recover  his  relic,  without  having  recourse  to  violence. 
So  he  called  out  in  a  loud  voice — 

"  Mynheer  Foots,  I  know  that  you  can  hear  me.  Give  me 
back  what  you  have  taken,  and  I  will  do  you  no  hurt ;  but  if 
you  will  not,  you  must  take  the  consequence,  for  your  life  shall 
pay  the  forfeit  before  I  leave  this  spot." 

This  speech  was  indeed  very  plainly  heard  by  Mynheer 
Foots,  but  the  little  miser  had  recovered  from  his  fright,  and 
thinking  himself  secure,  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  sur- 
render the  relic  without  a  struggle  ;  so  the  doctor  answered 
not,  hoping  that  the  patience  of  Philip  would  be  exhausted, 
and  that  by  some  arrangement,  such  as  the  sacrifice  of  a  few 
guilders,  no  small  matter  to  one  so  needy  as  Philip,  he  would 
be  able  to  secure  what  he  was  satisfied  would  sell  at  a  high 
price. 

Vanderdecken,  finding  that  no  answer  was  returned,  in- 
dulged in  strong  invective,  and  then  decided  upon  measures 
certainly  in  themselves  by  no  means  undecided. 

There  was  part  of  a  small  stack  of  dry  fodder  standing  not 
far  from  the  house,  and  under  the  wall  a  pile  of  wood  for 
firing.  With  these  Vanderdecken  resolved  upon  setting  fire 
to  the  house,  and  thus,  if  he  did  not  gain  his  relic,  he  would 
at  least  obtain  ample  revenge.  He  brought  several  armfuls 
of  fodder  and  laid  them  at  the  door  of  the  house,  and  upon 
that  he  piled  the  faggots  and  logs  of  wood,  until  the  door  was 
18 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

quite  concealed  by  them.  He  then  procured  a  light  from  the 
steel,  flint,  and  tinder,  which  every  Dutchman  carries  in  his 
pocket,  and  very  soon  he  had  fanned  the  pile  into  a  flame. 
The  smoke  ascended  in  columns  up  to  the  rafters  of  the  roof, 
while  the  fire  raged  below.  The  door  was  ignited,  and  was 
adding  to  the  fury  of  the  flames,  and  Philip  shouted  with  joy 
at  the  success  of  his  attempt. 

"  Now,  miserable  despoiler  of  the  dead — now,  wretched 
thief,  now  you  shall  feel  my  vengeance,"  cried  Philip,  with  a 
loud  voice.  "  If  you  remain  within  you  perish  in  the  flames  ; 
if  you  attempt  to  come  out  you  shall  die  by  my  hands.  Do 
you  hear,  Mynheer  Poots — do  you  hear  ?  " 

Hardly  had  Philip  concluded  this  address,  when  the  window 
of  the  upper  floor  furthest  from  the  burning  door  was  thrown 
open. 

"  Ay, — you  come  now  to  beg  and  to  entreat ;  but  no — no," 
cried  Philip,  who  stopped  as  he  beheld  at  the  window  what 
seemed  to  be  an  apparition,  for,  instead  of  the  wretched  little 
miser,  he  beheld  one  of  the  loveliest  forms  Nature  ever 
deigned  to  mould — an  angelic  creature,  of  about  sixteen  or 
seventeen,  who  appeared  calm  and  resolute  in  the  midst  of 
the  danger  by  which  she  was  threatened.  Her  long  black 
hair  was  braided  and  twined  round  her  beautifully  formed 
head  ;  her  eyes  were  large,  intensely  dark,  yet  soft ;  her 
forehead  high  and  \vhite,  her  chin  dimpled,  her  rubv  lips 
arched  and  delicately  fine,  her  nose  small  and  straight.  A 
lovelier  face  could  not  be  well  imagined  ;  it  reminded  you 
of  what  the  best  of  painters  have  sometimes,  in  their  more 
fortunate  moments,  succeeded  in  embodying,  when  they 
would  represent  a  beautiful  saint.  And  as  the  flames 
wreathed,  and  the  smoke  burst  out  in  columns  and  swept 
past  the  window,  so  might  she  have  reminded  you  in  her 
calmness  of  demeanour  of  some  martyr  at  the  stake. 

"  What  wouldst  thou,  violent  young  man  ?  Why  are  the 
inmates  of  this  house  to  suffer  death  by  your  means?"  said 
the  maiden,  with  composure. 

For  a  few  seconds  Philip  gazed,  and  could  make  no  reply ; 
then  the  thought  seized  him  that,  in  his  vengeance,  he  was 
about  to  sacrifice  so  much  loveliness.  He  forgot  everything 
but  her  danger,  and  seizing  one  of  the  large  poles  which  he 
had  brought  to  feed  the  flame,  he  threw  off  and  scattered  in 
19 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

ev^ry  direction  the  burning  masses,  until  nothing  was  left 
which  could  hurt  the  building  but  the  ignited  door  itself; 
and  this,  which  as  yet — for  it  was  of  thick  oak  plank— had 
not  suffered  very  material  injury,  he  soon  reduced,  by  beat- 
ing it  with  clods  of  earth,  to  a  smoking  and  harmless  state. 
During  these  active  measures  on  the  part  of  Philip,  the 
young  maiden  watched  him  in  silence. 

"  All  is  safe  now,  young  lady,"  said  Philip.  "  God  forgive 
me  that  I  should  have  risked  a  life  so  precious.  I  thought 
but  to  wreak  my  vengeance  upon  Mynheer  Poots." 

"  And  what  cause  can  Mynheer  Poots  have  given  for  such 
dreadful  vengeance  ?  "  replied  the  maiden  calmly. 

"  What  cause,  young  lady  ?  He  came  to  my  house — 
despoiled  the  dead — took  from  my  mother's  corpse  a  relic 
beyond  price." 

"  Despoiled  the  dead  ! — he  surely  cannot — you  must  wrong 
him,  young  sir." 

"  No,  no.  It  is  the  fact,  lady ;  and  that  relic — forgive  me 
— but  that  relic  I  must  have.  You  know  not  what  depends 
upon  it." 

"  Wait,  young  sir,"  replied  the  maiden  ;  "  I  will  soon  re- 
turn." 

Philip  waited  several  minutes,  lost  in  thought  and  admira- 
tion :  so  fair  a  creature  in  the  house  of  Mynheer  Poots ! 
Who  could  she  be  ?  While  thus  ruminating  lie  was  accosted 
by  the  silver  voice  of  the  object  of  his  reveries,  who,  leaning 
out  of  the  window,  held  in  her  hand  the  black  ribbon  to 
which  was  attached  the  article  so  dearly  coveted. 

"  Here  is  your  relic,  sir,"  said  the  young  female;  "I  regret 
much  that  my  father  should  have  done  a  deed  which  well 
might  justify  your  anger:  but  here  it  is,"  continued  she, 
dropping  it  down  on  the  ground  by  Philip;  "and  now  you 
may  depart." 

"  Your  father,  maiden !  can  he  be  your  father  ? "  said 
Philip,  forgetting  to  tike  up  the  relic  which  lay  at  his  feet. 

She  would  have  retired  from  the  window  without  reply, 
but  Philip  spoke  again — 

(C  Stop,  lady,  stop  one  moment,  until  I  beg  your  forgiveness 
for  my  wild,  foolish  act.  I  swear  by  this  sacred  relic,"  con- 
tinued he,  taking  it  from  the  ground  and  raising  it  to  his  lips, 
"  that  had  I  known  that  any  unoffending  person  had  been  in 
20 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

this  house  I  would  not  have  done  the  deed,  and  much  do  I 
rejoice  that  no  harm  hath  happened.  But  there  is  still 
danger,  lady ;  the  door  must  be  unbarred,  and  the  jambs, 
which  still  are  glowing,  be  extinguished,  or  the  house  may 
yet  be  burnt.  Fear  not  for  your  father,  maiden ;  for  had  he 
done  me  a  thousand  times  more  wrong,  you  will  protect  each 
hair  upon  his  head.  He  knows  me  well  enough  to  know  I 
keep  my  word.  Allow  me  to  repair  the  injury  I  have  occa- 
sioned, and  then  I  will  depart." 

"  No,  no ;  don't  trust  him,"  said  Mynheer  Foots  from 
within  the  chamber. 

"Yes,  he  may  be  trusted,"  replied  the  daughter;  "and 
his  services  are  much  needed  ;  for  what  could  a  poor  weak  girl 
like  me,  and  a  still  weaker  father,  do  in  this  strait  ?  Open 
the  door,  and  let  the  house  be  made  secure."  The  maiden 
then  addressed  Philip — "  He  shall  open  the  door,  sir,  and  I 
Will  thank  you  for  your  kind  service.  I  trust  entirely  to  your 
promise. ' 

"  I  never  yet  was  known  to  break  my  word,  maiden," 
replied  Philip;  "but  let  him  be  quick,  for  the  flames  are 
bursting  out  again." 

The  door  was  opened  by  the  trembling  hands  of  Mynheer 
Poots,  who  then  made  a  hasty  retreat  upstairs.  The  truth  of 
what  Philip  had  said  was  then  apparent.  Many  were  the 
buckets  of  water  which  he  was  obliged  to  fetch  before  the 
fire  was  subdued;  but  during  his  exertions  neither  the 
daughter  nor  the  father  made  their  appearance. 

When  all  was  safe  Philip  closed  the  door,  and  again  looked 
up  at  the  window.  The  fair  girl  made  her  appearance,  and 
Philip,  with  a  low  obeisance,  assured  her  that  there  was  then 
no  danger. 

"  I  thank  you,  sir,"  replied  she — "  I  thank  you  much. 
Your  conduct,  although  hasty  at  first,  has  yet  been  most 
considerate. " 

"  Assure  your  father,  maiden,  that  all  animosity  on  my  part 
hath  ceased,  and  that  in  a  few  days  I  will  call  and  satisfy  the 
demand  he  hath  against  me." 

The  window  closed,  and  Philip,  more  excited,  but  with 
feelings  altogether  different  from  those  with  which  he  had 
set  out,  looked  at  it  for  a  minute,  and  then  bent  his  steps  to 
his  own  cottage. 

21 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 


CHAPTER  III 

JL  HE  discovery  of  the  beautiful  daughter  of  Mynheer  Foots 
had  made  a  strong  impression  upon  Philip  Vanderdecken,  and 
now  he  had  another  excitement  to  combine  with  those  which 
already  overcharged  his  bosom.  He  arrived  at  his  own  house, 
went  upstairs,  and  threw  himself  on  the  bed  from  which  he 
had  been  roused  by  Mynheer  Foots.  At  first  he  recalled  to 
his  mind  the  scene  we  have  just  described,  painted  in  his 
imagination  the  portrait  of  the  fair  girl,  her  eyes,  her  expres- 
sion, her  silver  voice,  and  the  words  which  she  had  uttered  ; 
but  her  pleasing  image  was  soon  chased  away  by  the  recollec- 
tion that  his  mother's  corpse  lay  in  the  adjoining  chamber, 
and  that  his  father's  secret  was  hidden  in  the  room  below. 

The  funeral  was  to  take  place  the  next  morning,  and 
Philip,  who,  since  his  meeting  with  the  daughter  of  Mynheer 
Foots,  appeared  even  to  himself  not  so  anxious  for  immediate 
examination  of  the  room,  resolved  that  he  would  not  open  it 
until  after  the  melancholy  ceremony.  With  this  resolution 
he  fell  asleep  ;  and,  exhausted  with  bodily  and  mental  excite- 
ment, he  did  not  wake  until  the  next  morning,  when  he  was 
summoned  by  the  priest  to  assist  at  the  funeral  rites.  In  an 
hour  all  was  over ;  the  crowd  dispersed,  and  Philip,  returning 
to  the  cottage,  bolted  the  door  that  he  might  not  be  inter- 
rupted, and  felt  happy  that  he  was  alone. 

There  is  a  feeling  in  our  nature  which  will  arise  when  we 
again  find  ourselves  in  the  tenement  where  death  has  been, 
and  all  traces  of  it  have  been  removed.  It  is  a  feeling  of 
satisfaction  and  relief  at  having  rid  ourselves  of  the  memento 
of  mortality,  the  silent  evidence  of  the  futility  of  our  pursuits 
and  anticipations.  We  know  that  we  must  one  day  die,  but 
we  always  wish  to  forget  it.  The  continual  remembrance 
would  be  too  great  a  check  upon  our  mundane  desires  and 
wishes  ;  and  although  we  are  told  that  we  ever  should  have 
futurity  in  our  thoughts,  we  find  that  life  is  not  to  be  enjoyed  if 
we  are  not  permitted  occasional  forgetful  ness.  For  who  would 
plan  what  rarely  he  is  permitted  to  execute,  if  each  moment 
of  the  day  he  thought  of  death  ?  We  either  hope  that  we 
may  live  longer  than  others,  or  we  forget  that  we  may  not. 
22 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

If  this  buoyant  feeling  had  not  been  planted  in  cur  naturCj 
how  little  would  the  world  have  been  improved,  even  from 
the  deluge  !  Philip  walked  into  the  room  where  his  mother 
had  lain  one  short  hour  before,  and  unwittingly  felt  relief. 
Taking  down  the  cabinet,  he  now  recommenced  his  task  ;  the 
back  panel  was  soon  removed,  and  a  secret  drawer  discovered ; 
he  drew  it  out,  and  it  contained  what  he  presumed  to  be  the 
object  of  his  search — a  large  key  with  a  slight  coat  of  rust 
upon  it,  which  came  off'  upon  its  being  handled.  Under 
the  key  was  a  paper,  the  writing  on  which  was  somewhat 
discoloured :  it  was  in  his  mother's  hand,  and  ran  as 
follows : — 

"It  is  now  two  nights  since  a  horrible  event  took  place 
which  has  induced  me  to  close  the  lower  chamber,,  and  my 
brain  is  still  bursting  with  terror.  Should  I  not,  during  my 
lifetime,  reveal  what  occurred,  still  this  key  will  be  required, 
as  at  my  death  the  room  will  be  opened.  When  I  rushed 
from  it  I  hastened  upstairs,  and  remained  that  night  with  my 
child ;  the  next  morning  I  summoned  up  sufficient  courage  to 
go  down,  turn  the  key,  and  bring  it  up  into  my  chamber.  It 
is  now  closed  till  I  close  my  eyes  in  death.  No  privation,  no 
suffering,  shall  induce  me  to  open  it,  although  in  the  iron 
cupboard  under  the  buffet  farthest  from  the  window,  there  is 
money  sufficient  for  all  my  wants;  that  money  will  remain 
there  for  my  child,  to  whom,  if  I  do  not  impart  the  fatal 
secret,  he  must  be  satisfied  that  it  is  one  which  it  were  better 
should  be  concealed— one  so  horrible  as  to  induce  me  to  take 
the  steps  which  I  now  do.  The  keys  of  the  cupboards  and 
buffets  were,  I  think,  lying  on  the  table,  or  in  my  workbox, 
when  I  quitted  the  room.  There  is  a  letter  on  the  table,  at 
least  I  think  so.  It  is  sealed.  Let  not  the  seal  be  broken 
but  by  my  son,  and  not  by  him  unless  he  knows  the  secret. 
Let  it  be  burnt  by  the  priest,  for  it  is  cursed  ; — and  even 
should  my  son  know  all  that  I  do,  oh  !  let  him  pause — let 
him  reflect  well  before  he  breaks  the  seal ;  for  'twere  better 
he  should  know  NO  MORE  ! " 

"  Net  know  more ! "  thought  Philip,  as  his  eyes  were  still 
fixed  upon  the  paper.  "Yes,  but  I  must  and  will  know  more  ! 
so  forgive  me,  dearest  mother,  if  I  waste  no  time  in  reflec- 
tion. It  would  be  but  time  thrown  away,  when  one  L  resolved 
as  I  am." 

23 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Philip  pressed  his  lips  to  his  mother's  signature,  folded  up 
the  paper,  and  put  it  into  his  pocket ;  then  taking  the  key 
he  proceeded  downstairs. 

It  was  about  noon  when  Philip  descended  to  open  the 
chamber;  the  sun  shone  bright,  the  sky  was  clear,  and  all 
without  was  cheerful  and  joyous.  The  front  door  of  the 
cottage  being  closed,  there  was  not  much  light  in  the  passage 
when  Philip  put  the  key  into  the  lock  of  the  long-closed  door, 
and  with  some  difficulty  turned  it  round.  To  say  that  when  he 
pushed  open  the  door  he  felt  no  alarm  would  not  be  correct ; 
he  did  feel  alarm,  and  his  heart  palpitated ;  but  he  felt  more 
than  was  requisite  of  determination  to  conquer  that  alarm,  and 
to  conquer  more,  should  more  be  created  by  what  he  should 
behold.  He  opened  the  door,  but  did  not  immediately  enter 
the  room :  he  paused  where  he  stood,  for  he  felt  as  if  he  was 
about  to  intrude  into  the  retreat  of  a  disembodied  spirit,  and 
that  that  spirit  might  reappear.  He  waited  a  minute,  for  the 
effort  of  opening  the  door  had  taken  away  his  breath,  and,  as 
he  recovered  himself,  he  looked  within. 

He  could  but  imperfectly  distinguish  the  objects  in  the 
chamber,  but  through  the  joints  of  the  shutters  there  were 
three  brilliant  beams  of  sunshine  forcing  their  way  across  the 
room,  which  at  first  induced  him  to  recoil  as  if  from  something 
supernatural ;  but  a  little  reflection  reassured  him.  After 
about  a  minute's  pause,  Philip  went  into  the  kitchen,  lighted  a 
candle,  and,  sighing  deeply  two  or  three  times  as  if  to  relieve 
his  heart,  he  summoned  his  resolution  and  walked  towards 
the  fatal  room.  He  first  stopped  at  the  threshold,  and  by  the 
light  of  the  candle  took  a  hasty  survey.  All  was  still ;  and 
the  table  on  which  the  letter  had  been  left,  being  behind  the 
door,  was  concealed  by  its  being  opened.  It  must  be  done, 
thought  Philip :  and  why  not  at  once  ?  continued  he,  resuming 
his  courage  ;  and  with  a  firm  step  he  walked  into  the  room 
and  went  to  unfasten  the  shutters.  If  his  hands  trembled  a 
little  when  he  called  to  mind  how  supernaturally  they  had  last 
been  opened,  it  is  not  surprising.  We  are  but  mortal,  and  we 
shrink  from  contact  with  aught  beyond  this  life.  When  the 
fastenings  were  removed  and  the  shutters  unfolded,  a  stream 
of  light  poured  into  the  room  so  vivid  as  to  dazzle  his  eyesight; 
Strange  to  say,  this  very  light  of  a  brilliant  day  overthrew  thQ 
resolution  of  Philip  more  than  the  previous  gloom  and  darknesj 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

had  done ;  and  with  the  candle  in  his  hand  he  retreated 
hastily  into  the  kitchen  to  resummon  his  courage,  and  there 
he  remained  for  some  minutes,  with  his  face  covered,  and  in 
deep  thought. 

It  is  singular  that  his  reveries  at  last  ended  by  reverting  to 
the  fair  daughter  of  Mynheer  Foots,  and  her  first  appearance 
at  the  window  ;  and  he  felt  as  if  the  flood  of  light  which  had 
just  driven  him  from  the  one,  was  not  more  impressive  and 
startling  than  her  enchanting  form  at  the  other.  His  mind 
dwelling  upon  the  beauteous  vision  appeared  to  restore 
Philip's  confidence ;  he  now  rose  and  boldly  walked  into  the 
room.  We  shall  not  describe  the  objects  it  contained  as  they 
chanced  to  meet  the  eyes  of  Philip,  but  attempt  a  more 
lucid  arrangement. 

The  room  was  about  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  square,  with 
but  one  window  ;  opposite  to  the  door  stood  the  chimney 
and  fireplace,  with  a  high  buffet  of  dark  wood  on  each  side. 
The  floor  of  the  room  was  not  dirty,  although  about  its  upper 
parts  spiders  had  run  their  cobwebs  in  every  direction.  In 
the  centre  of  the  ceiling  hung  a  quicksilver  globe,  a  common 
ornament  in  those  days,  but  the  major  part  of  it  had  lost  its 
brilliancy,  the  spiders'  webs  enclosing  it  like  a  shroud.  Over 
the  chimney-piece  were  hung  two  or  three  drawings  framed 
and  glazed,  but  a  dusty  mildew  was  spotted  over  the  glass, 
so  that  little  of  them  could  be  distinguished.  In  the  centre 
of  the  mantelpiece  was  an  image  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  of  pure 
silver,  in  a  shrine  of  the  same  metal,  but  it  was  tarnished 
to  the  colour  of  bronze  or  iron  ;  some  Indian  figures  stood 
on  each  side  of  it.  The  glass  door  of  the  buffets  on  each 
side  of  the  chimney-piece  were  also  so  dimmed  that  little  of 
what  was  within  could  be  distinguished  ;  the  light  and  heat 
which  had  been  poured  into  the  room,  even  for  so  short  a 
time,  had  already  gathered  up  the  damp  of  many  years,  and 
it  lay  as  a  mist,  and  mingled  with  the  dust,  upon  the  panes 
of  glass :  still  here  and  there  a  glittering  of  silver  vessels 
could  be  discerned,  for  the  glass  doors  had  protected  them 
from  turning  black,  although  much  dimmed  in  lustre. 

On  the  wall  facing  the  window  were  other  prints,  :n  frames 

equally  veiled  in  damp  and  cobwebs,  and  also  two  bird-cages. 

The  bird-cages  Philip  approached,  and   looked   into   them. 

The  occupants,  of  course,  had  long  been  dead  ;  but  at  the 

£0 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

bottom  of  the  cages  was  a  small  heap  of  yellow  feathers, 
through  which  the  little  white  bones  of  the  skeletons  were 
to  be  seen,  proving  that  they  had  been  brought  from  the 
Canary  Isles  :  and  at  that  period  such  birds  were  highly 
valued.  Philip  appeared  to  wish  to  examine  everything 
before  he  sought  that  which  he  most  dreaded,  yet  most 
wished  to  find.  There  were  several  chairs  round  the  room : 
on  one  of  them  was  some  linen :  he  took  it  up.  It  was 
some  that  must  have  belonged  to  him  when  he  was  yet  a 
child.  At  last  Philip  turned  his  eyes  to  the  wall  not  yet 
examined  (that  opposite  the  chimney-piece),  through  which 
the  door  was  pierced,  and  behind  the  door  as  it  lay  open, 
he  was  to  find  the  table,  the  couch,  the  workbox,  and  the 
FATAL  LETTER.  As  he  turned  round,  his  pulse,  which  had 
graduallv  recovered  its  regular  motion,  beat  more  quickly  ; 
but  he  made  the  effort,  and  it  was  over.  At  first  he  exa- 
mined the  walls,  against  which  were  hung  swords  and 
pistols  of  various  sorts,  but  chieHy  Asiatic  bows  and  arrows, 
and  other  implements  of  destruction.  Philip's  eyes  gradually 
descended  upon  the  table  and  little  couch  behind  it,  where 
his  mother  stated  herself  to  have  been  seated  when  his 
father  made  his  awful  visit.  The  workbox  and  all  its  im- 
plements were  on  the  table,  just  as  she  had  left  them.  The 
keys  she  mentioned  were  also  lying  there,  but  Philip  looked, 
and  looked  again ;  there  was  no  letter.  He  now  advanced 
nearer,  examined  closely  —  there  was  none  that  he  could 
perceive,  either  on  the  couch  or  on  the  table,  or  on  the 
floor.  He  lifted  up  the  workbox  to  ascertain  if  it  was  be- 
neath— but  no.  He  examined  among  its  contents,  but  no 
letter  was  there.  He  turned  over  the  pillows  of  the  couch, 
but  still  there  was  no  letter  to  be  found.  And  Philip  felt 
as  if  there  had  been  a  heavy  load  removed  from  his  panting 
chest.  "  Surely  then,"  thought  he,  as  he  leant  against  the 
wall,  "  this  must  have  been  the  vision  of  a  heated  imagina- 
tion. My  poor  mother  must  have  fallen  asleep,  and  dreamt 
this  horrid  tale.  I  thought  it  was  impossible,  at  least  I 
hoped  so.  It  must  have  been  as  I  suppose ;  the  dream  was 
too  powerful,  too  like  a  fearful  reality — partially  unseated 
my  poor  mother's  reason."  Philip  reflected  again,  and  was 
then  satisfied  that  his  suppositions  were  correct. 

"  Yes,  it  must  have  been  so,  poor  dear  mother  !  how  much 
26 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

thou  hast  suffered  ;  but  thou  art  now  rewarded,  and  with 
God." 

After  a  few  minutes  (during  which  he  surveyed  the  room 
again  and  again  with  more  coolness,  and  perhaps  some  in- 
difference, now  that  he  regarded  the  supernatural  history  as 
not  true),  Philip  took  out  of  his  pocket  the  written  paper 
found  with  the  key,  and  read  it  over. — "  The  iron  cupboard 
under  the  buffet  furthest  from  the  window."  "  'Tis  well." 
He  took  the  bunch  of  keys  from  off  the  table,  and  soon 
fitted  one  to  the  outside  wooden  doors  which  concealed  the 
iron  safe.  A  second  key  on  the  bunch  opened  the  iron 
doors ;  and  Philip  found  himself  in  possession  of  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money,  amounting,  as  near  as  he  could 
reckon,  to  ten  thousand  guilders,  in  little  yellow  sacks. 
"  My  poor  mother ! "  thought  he  ;  "  and  has  a  mere 
ilream  scared  thee  to  penury  and  want,  with  all  this 
ivealth  in  thy  possession?"  Philip  replaced  the  sacks,  and 
locked  up  the  cupboards,  after  having  taken  out  of  one, 
nlready  half  emptied,  a  few  pieces  for  his  immediate  wants. 
iSis  attention  was  next  directed  to  the  buffets  above,  which, 
itrith  one  of  the  keys,  he  opened  ;  he  found  that  they  con- 
tained china,  silver  flagons,  and  cups  of  considerable  value. 
The  locks  were  again  turned,  and  the  bunch  of  keys  thrown 
ipon  the  table. 

The  sudden  possession  of  so  much  wealth,  added  to  the 
tonviction,  to  which  Philip  had  now  arrived,  that  there  had 
been  no  supernatural  appearance,  as  supposed,  by  his  mother, 
naturally  revived  and  composed  his  spirits ;  and  he  felt  a 
reaction  which  amounted  almost  to  hilarity.  Seating  himself 
Dn  the  couch  he  was  soon  in  a  reverie,  and  as  before  reverted 
to  the  lovely  daughter  of  Mynheer  Poots,  indulging  in  various 
castle-buildings,  all  ending,  as  usual  when  we  choose  for  our- 
selves, in  competence  and  felicity.  In  this  pleasing  occupation 
he  remained  for  more  than  two  hours,  when  his  thoughts  again 
reverted  to  his  poor  mother  and  her  fearful  death. 

"  Dearest,  kindest  mother  !  "  apostrophised  Philip  aloud,  as 
he  rose  from  his  leaning  position,  "  here  thou  wert,  tired  with 
watching  over  my  infant  slumbers,  thinking  of  my  absent  father 
and  his  dangers,  working  up  thy  mind  and  anticipating  evil, 
till  thy  fevered  sleep  conjured  up  this  apparition.  Yes,  it 
have  been  so,  for  see  here,  lying  on  the  floor  is  the  em- 
27 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

broidery  as  it  fell  from  thy  unconscious  hands,  and  with  that 
labour  ceased  thy  happiness  in  this  life.  Dear,  dear  mother  !  " 
continued  he,  a  tear  rolling  down  his  cheek  as  he  stooped  to 
pick  up  the  piece  of  muslin,  "  how  much  hast  thou  suffered 

when God  of  Heaven  !  "  exclaimed  Philip,  as  he  lifted  up 

the  embroidery,  starting  back  with  violence,  and  overturning 
the  table,  "  God  of  Heaven,  anil  of  Judgment,  there  is — there 
is,"  and  Philip  clasped  his  hands,  and  bowed  his  head  in  awe 
and  anguish,  as  in  a  changed  and  fearful  tone  he  muttered 
forth — "  the  LETTER  ! " 

It  was  but  too  true, — underneath  the  embroidery  on  the 
floor  had  lain  the  fatal  letter  of  Vanderdecken.  Had  Philip 
seen  it  on  the  table  when  he  first  went  into  the  room,  and 
was  prepared  to  find  it,  he  would  have  taken  it  up  with  some 
degree  of  composure ;  but  to  find  it  now,  when  he  had  per- 
suaded himself  that  it  was  all  an  illusion  on  the  part  of  his 
mother ;  when  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  there  had  been 
no  supernatural  agency  ;  after  he  had  been  indulging  in  visions 
of  future  bliss  and  repose,  was  a  shock  that  transfixed  him 
where  he  stood,  and  for  some  time  he  remained  in  his  attitude 
of  surprise  and  terror.  Down  at  once  fell  the  airy  fabric  of 
happiness  which  he  had  built  up  during  the  last  two  hours ; 
and  as  he  gradually  recovered  from  his  alarm,  his  heart  filled 
with  melancholy  forebodings.  At  last  he  dashed  forward, 
seized  the  letter,  and  burst  out  of  the  fatal  room. 

"  I  cannot,  dare  not,  read  it  here,"  exclaimed  he  ;  "  no,  no, 
it  must  be  under  the  vault  of  high  and  offended  Heaven,  that 
the  message  must  be  received."  Philip  took  his  hat,  and  went 
out  of  the  house ;  in  calm  despair  he  locked  the  door,  took 
out  the  key,  and  walked  he  knew  not  whither. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IF  the  reader  can  imagine  the  feelings  of  a  man  who, 
sentenced  to  death,  and  having  resigned  himself  to  his  fate, 
finds  himself  unexpectedly  reprieved  ;  who,  having  recomposed 
his  mind  after  the  agitation  arising  from  a  renewal  of  those 
hopes  and  expectations  which  he  had  abandoned,  once  more 
dwells  upon  future  prospects,  and  indulges  in  pleasing  antici< 
28 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

pations  :  we  say,  that  if  the  reader  can  imagine  this,  and  then 
what  would  be  that  man's  feelings  when  he  finds  that  the 
reprieve  is  revoked,  and  that  he  is  to  suffer,  he  may  then 
form  some  idea  of  the  state  of  Philip's  mind  when  he  quitted 
the  cottage. 

Long  did  he  walk,  careless  in  which  direction,  with  the 
letter  in  his  clenched  hand,  and  his  teeth  firmly  set.  Gradually 
he  became  more  composed  ;  and  out  of  breath  with  the  rapidity 
of  his  motion,  he  sat  down  upon  a  bank,  and  there  he  long 
remained,  with  his  eyes  riveted  upon  the  dreaded  paper,  which 
he  held  with  both  his  hands  upon  his  knees. 

Mechanically  he  turned  the  letter  over;  the  seal  was  black. 
Philip  sighed.  "  I  cannot  read  it  now,"  thought  he,  and  he 
rose  and  continued  his  devious  way. 

For  another  half-hour  did  Philip  keep  in  motion,  and  the 
sun  was  not  many  degrees  above  the  horizon.  Philip  stopped 
and  looked  at  it  till  his  vision  failed.  t(  I  could  imagine  that 
it  was  the  eye  of  God,"  thought  Philip,  "and  perhaps  it  may 
be.  Why,  then,  merciful  Creator,  am  I  thus  selected  from  so 
many  millions  to  fulfil  so  dire  a  task  ?  " 

Philip  looked  about  him  for  some  spot  where  he  might  be 
concealed  from  observation — where  he  might  break  the  seal, 
and  read  this  missive  from  a  world  of  spirits.  A  small  copse 
of  brushwood,  in  advance  of  a  grove  of  trees,  was  not  far  from 
where  he  stood.  He  walked  to  it,  and  sat  down,  so  as  to  be 
concealed  from  any  passers-by.  Philip  once  more  looked  at 
the  descending  orb  of  day,  and  by  degrees  he  became  com- 
posed. 

"  It  is  thy  will,"  exclaimed  he  ;  "  it  is  my  fate,  and  both 
must  be  accomplished." 

Philip  put  his  hand  to  the  seal — his  blood  thrilled  when  he 
called  to  mind  that  it  had  been  delivered  by  no  mortal  hand, 
and  that  it  contained  the  secret  of  one  in  judgment.  He  re- 
membered that  that  one  was  his  father ;  and  that  it  Mas  only 
in  the  letter  that  there  was  hope — hope  for  his  poor  father, 
whose  memory  he  had  been  taught  to  love,  and  who  appealed 
for  help. 

"  Coward  that  I  am,  to  have  lost  so  many  hours  !  "  exclaimed 
Philip;  "yon  sun  appears  as  if  waiting  on  the  hill  to  give  me 
light  to  read." 

Philip  roused  a  short  time ;  he  was  once  more  the  daring 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

Vanderdecken.     Calmly  he  broke  the  seal,  which  bore  the 
initials  of  his  father's  name,  and  read  as  follows  : — 

"To  CATHERINE. 

"  One  of  those  pitying  spirits  whose  eyes  rain  tears  for 
mortal  crimes  has  been  permitted  to  inform  me  by  what  means 
alone  my  dreadful  doom  may  be  averted. 

"  Could  I  but  receive  on  the  deck  of  my  own  ship  the  holy 
relic  upon  which  I  swore  the  fatal  oath,  kiss  it  in  all  humility, 
and  shed  one  tear  of  deep  contrition  on  the  sacred  wood,  I 
then  might  rest  in  peace. 

"  How  this  may  be  effected,  or  by  whom  so  fatal  a  task  will 
be  undertaken,  I  know  not.  O  Catherine,  we  have  a  son — but, 
no,  no,  let  him  not  hear  of  me.  Pray  for  me,  and  now,  fare- 
well. I.  VANDERDECKEN." 

"Then  it  is  true,  most  horribly  true,"  thought  Philip;  "and 
my  father  is  even  now  IN  LIVING  JUDGMENT.  And  he  points  to 
me — to  whom  else  should  he  ?  Am  I  not  his  son,  and  is  it 
not  my  duty?" 

"  Yes,  father,"  exclaimed  Philip  aloud,  falling  on  his  knees, 
"you  have  not  written  these  lines  in  vain.  Let  me  peruse 
them  once  more." 

Philip  raised  up  his  hand  ;  but  although  it  appeared  to  him 
that  he  had  still  hold  of  the  letter,  it  was  not  there — he  grasped 
nothing.  He  looked  on  the  grass  to  see  if  it  had  fallen  ;  but 
no,  there  was  no  letter — it  had  disappeared.  Was  it  a  vision? 
— no,  no,  he  had  read  every  word.  "Then  it  must  be  to  me, 
and  me  alone,  that  the  mission  was  intended.  I  accept  the 
sign." 

"Hear  me,  dear  father — if  thou  art  so  permitted — and 
deign  to  hear  me,  gracious  Heaven — hear  the  son  who,  by  this 
sacred  relic,  swears  that  he  will  avert  your  doom,  or  perish. 
To  that  will  he  devote  his  days;  and  having  done  his  duty,  he 
will  die  in  hope  and  peace.  Heaven,  that  recorded  my  rash 
father's  oath,  now  register  his  son's  upon  the  same  sacred  cross, 
and  may  perjury  on  my  part  be  visited  with  punishment  more 
dire  than  his !  Receive  it,  Heaven,  as  at  the  last  I  trust  that 
in  Thy  mercy  Thou  wilt  receive  the  father  and  the  son  !  and  if 
too  bold,  oh  pardon  my  presumption." 

Philip  threw  himself  forward  on  his  face,  with  his  lips  to  the 
30 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

sacred  symbol.  The  sun  went  down  and  twilight  gradually  dis- 
appeared ;  night  had,  for  some  time,  shrouded  all  in  darkness, 
and  Philip  yet  remained  in  alternate  prayer  and  meditation. 

But  he  was  disturbed  by  the  voices  of  some  men,  who  sat 
down  upon  the  turf  but  a  few  yards  from  where  he  was  con- 
cealed. The  conversation  he  little  heeded,  but  it  had  roused 
him,  and  his  first  feeling  was  to  return  to  the  cottage,  that  he 
might  reflect  over  his  plans.  But  although  the  men  spoke  in 
a  low  tone,  his  attention  was  soon  arrested  by  the  subject  of 
their  conversation,  when  he  heard  the  name  mentioned  of 
Mynheer  Poots.  He  listened  attentively,  and  discovered  that 
they  were  four  disbanded  soldiers,  who  intended  that  night  to 
attack  the  house  of  the  little  doctor,  who  had,  they  knew, 
much  money  in  his  possession. 

"What  I  have  proposed  is  the  best,"  said  one  of  them; 
"  he  has  no  one  with  him  but  his  daughter." 

"  I  value  her  more  than  his  money,"  replied  another ;  "  so 
recollect  before  we  go,  it  is  perfectly  understood  that  she  is 
to  be  my  property." 

"  Yes,  if  you  choose  to  purchase  her,  there's  no  objection," 
replied  a  third. 

"  Agreed  ;  how  much  will  you  in  conscience  ask  for  a 
puling  girl  ?  " 

"  I  say  five  hundred  guilders,"  replied  another. 

"  Well,  be  it  so,  but  on  this  condition,  that  if  my  share  of 
the  booty  does  not  amount  to  so  much,  I  am  to  have  her  for 
my  share,  whatever  it  may  be." 

"That's  very  fair,"  replied  the  other;  "but  I'm  much  mis- 
taken if  we  don't  turn  more  than  two  thousand  guilders  out 
of  the  old  man's  chest." 

"What  do  you  two  say — is  it  agreed — shall  Baetens  have 
her  ?  " 

"Oh  yes,"  replied  the  others. 

"Well,  then,"  replied  the  one  who  had  stipulated  for  Myn- 
heer Poots'  daughter,  "  now  I  am  with  you,  heart  and  soul. 
I  loved  that  girl,  and  tried  to  get  her — I  positively  offered 
to  marry  her,  but  the  old  hunks  refused  me,  an  ensign,  an 
officer ;  but  now  I'll  have  revenge.  We  must  not  spare  him." 

"No,  no,"  replied  the  others. 

"  Shall  we  go  now,  or  wait  till  it  is  later  ?     In  an  hour  or 
more  the  moon  will  be  up — we  may  be  seen." 
31 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Who  is  to  see  us  ?  unless,  indeed,  some  one  is  sent  for 
him.  The  later  the  better,  I  say." 

"  How  long  will  it  take  us  to  get  there  ?  Not  half-an-hour, 
if  we  walk.  Suppose  we  start  in  half-an-hour  hence,  we  shall 
just  have  the  moon  to  count  the  guilders  by." 

"That's  all  right.  In  the  meantime  I'll  put  a  new  flint 
in  my  lock,  and  have  my  carbine  loaded.  I  can  work  in  the 
dark." 

"  You  are  used  to  it,  Jan." 

"  Yes,  I  am  ;  and  I  intend  this  ball  to  go  through  the  old 
rascal's  head." 

"  Well,  I'd  rather  you  should  kill  him  than  I,"  replied  one 
of  the  others,  "  for  he  saved  my  life  at  Middleburgh,  when 
every  one  made  sure  I'd  die." 

Philip  did  not  wait  to  hear  any  more ;  he  crawled  behind 
the  bushes  until  he  gained  the  grove  of  trees,  and  passing 
through  them,  made  a  detour  so  as  not  to  be  seen  by  these 
miscreants.  That  they  were  disbanded  soldiers,  many  of 
whom  were  infesting  the  country,  he  knew  well.  All  his 
thoughts  were  now  to  save  the  old  doctor  and  his  daughter 
from  the  danger  which  threatened  them  ;  and  for  a  time  he 
forgot  his  father,  and  the  exciting  revelations  of  the  day. 
Although  Philip  had  not  been  aware  in  what  direction  he 
had  walked  when  he  set  off  from  the  cottage,  he  knew  the 
country  well ;  and  now  that  it  was  necessary  to  act,  he  re- 
membered the  direction  in  which  he  should  find  the  lonely 
house  of  Mynheer  Poots :  with  the  utmost  speed  he  made 
his  way  for  it,  and  in  less  than  twenty  minutes  he  arrived 
there,  out  of  breath. 

As  usual,  all  was  silent,  and  the  door  fastened.  -Philip 
knocked,  but  there  was  no  reply.  Again  and  again  he 
knocked,  and  became  impatient.  Mynheer  Poots  must  have 
been  summoned,  and  was  not  in  the  house ;  Philip  therefore 
called  out  so  as  to  be  heard  within.  "  Maiden,  if  your  father 
is  out,  as  I  presume  he  must  be,  listen  to  what  I  have  to  say 
• — I  am  Philip  Vanderdecken.  But  now  I  overheard  four 
wretches  who  have  planned  to  murder  your  father,  and  rob 
him  of  his  gold.  In  one  hour  or  less  they  will  be  here,  and  I 
have  hastened  to  warn  and  to  protect  you,  if  I  may.  I  swear 
upon  the  relic  that  you  delivered  to  ire  this  morning  that 
What  I  state  is  true." 

32 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Philip  waited  a  short  time,  but  received  no  answer. 

"Maiden,"  resumed  he,  "answer  me,  if  you  value  that 
which  is  more  dear  to  you  than  even  your  father's  gold  to 
him.  Open  the  casement  above,  and  listen  to  what  I  have 
to  say.  In  so  doing  there  is  no  risk ;  and  even  if  it  were  not 
dark,  already  have  I  seen  you." 

A  short  time  after  this  second  address,  the  casement  of  the 
upper  window  was  unbarred,  and  the  slight  form  of  the  fair 
daughter  of  Mynheer  Foots  was  to  be  distinguished  by  Philip 
through  the  gloom. 

"  What  wouldst  thou,  young  sir,  at  this  unseemly  hour  ?  and 
what  is  it  thou  wouldst  impart,  but  imperfectly  heard  by  me, 
when  thou  spokest  this  minute  at  the  door  ?  " 

Philip  then  entered  into  a  detail  of  all  that  he  had  over- 
heard, and  concluded  by  begging  her  to  admit  him,  that  he 
might  defend  her. 

"  Think,  fair  maiden,  of  what  I  have  told  you.  You  have 
been  sold  to  one  of  those  reprobates,  whose  name,  I  think 
they  mentioned,  was  Baetens.  The  gold,  1  know,  you  value 
not ;  but  think  of  thine  own  dear  self — suffer  me  to  enter 
the  house,  and  think  not  for  one  moment  that  my  story's 
feigned.  I  swear  to  thee,  by  the  soul  of  my  poor  dear 
mother,  now,  I  trust,  in  heaven,  that  every  word  is  true." 

"  Baetens,  did  you  say,  sir  ?  " 

f<  If  I  mistook  them  not,  such  was  the  name  ;  he  said  he 
loved  you  once." 

"  That  name  I  have  in  memory — I  know  not  what  to  do  or 
what  to  say — my  father  has  been  summoned  to  a  birth,  and 
may  be  yet  away  for  many  hours.  Yet  how  can  I  open  the 
door  to  you — at  night — he  is  not  at  home— I  alone  !  I  ought 
not — cannot — yet  do  I  believe  you.  You  surely  never  could 
be  so  base  as  to  invent  this  tale." 

"  No — upon  my  hopes  of  future  bliss  I  could  not,  maiden  ! 
You  must  not  trifle  with  your  life  and  honour,  but  let  me  in." 

"  And  if  I  did,  what  could  you  do  against  such  numbers  ? 
They  are  four  to  one — would  soon  overpower  you,  and  one 
more  life  would  be  lost." 

"  Not  if  you  have  arms  ;  and  I  think  your  father  would  not 
be  left  without  them.  I  fear  them  not — you  know  that  I  am 
resolute." 

"  I  do  indeed— and  now  you'd  risk  your  life  for  those  you 
33  c 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

did  assail.  I  thank  you — thank  you  kindly,  sir — but  darn 
not  open  the  door." 

"Then,  maiden,  if  you'll  not  admit  me,  here  will  I  now 
remain;  without  arms,  and  but  ill  able  to  contend  with  four 
armed  villains;  but  still,  here  will  I  remain  and  prove  my 
truth  to  one  I  will  protect  against  any  odds — yes,  even 
here ! " 

"  Then  shall  I  be  thy  murderer  ! — but  that  must  not  be. 
O  sir — swear,  swear  by  all  that's  holy,  and  by  all  that's  pure, 
that  you  do  not  deceive  me.  ' 

"  I  swear  by  thyself,  maiden,  than  all  to  me  more  sacred  !  " 

The  casement  closed,  and  in  a  short  time  a  light  appeared 
above.  In  a  minute  or  two  more  the  door  was  opened  to 
Philip  by  the  fair  daughter  of  Mynheer  Poots.  She  stood 
with  the  candle  m  her  right  hand,  the  colour  in  her  cheeks 
varying — now  flushing  red,  and  again  deadly  pale.  Her  left 
hind  was  down  by  her  side,  and  in  it  she  held  a  pistol  1  alf 
concealed.  Philip  perceived  this  precaution  on  her  part  »ut 
took  no  notice  of  it ;  he  wished  to  reassure  her. 

"  Maiden  •  "  said  he,  not  entering,  "if  you  still  have  do'.bta 
- — if  you  think  you  have  been  ill-advised  in  giving  me  adn/is- 
sion — there  is  yet  time  to  close  the  door  against  me  ;  but  for 
your  own  sake  I  entreat  you  not.  Before  the  moon  is  up,  \  he 
robbers  will  be  here.  With  my  life  I  will  protect  you,  if  you 
will  but  trust  me.  Who  indeed  could  injure  one  like  you  r  " 

She  was  indeed  (as  she  stood  irresolute  and  perplexed  from 
the  peculiarity  of  her  situation,  yet  not  wanting  in  courage 
when  it  was  to  be  called  forth)  an  object  well  worthy  of  gaze 
and  admiration.  Her  features,  thrown  into  broad  light  and 
shade  by  the  candle  which  at  times  was  half  extinguished  by 
the  wind — her  symmetry  of  form  and  the  gracefulness  and 
singularity  of  her  attire — were  matter  of  astonishment  to 
Philip.  Her  head  was  without  covering,  and  her  long  hair  fell 
in  plaits  behind  her  shoulders ;  her  stature  was  rather  under 
the  middle  size,  but  her  form  perfect;  her  dress  was  simple 
but  becoming,  and  very  different  from  that  usually  worn  by 
the  young  women  of  the  district.  Not  only  her  features  but 
her  dress  would  at  once  have  indicated  to  a  traveller  that  she 
was  of  Arab  blood,  as  was  the  fact 

She  looked  in  Philip's  face  as  she  spoke — earnestly,  as  if 
she  would  have  penetrated  into  his  inmost  thoughts ;  but 
34 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

there  was  a  frankness  and  honesty  in  his  bearing,  and  a 
sincerity  in  his  manly  countenance,  which  reassured  her. 
After  a  moment's  hesitation  she  replied — 

"  Come  in,  sir ;  I  feel  that  I  can  trust  you." 

Philip  entered.  The  door  was  then  closed  and  made 
secure. 

"  We  have  no  time  to  lose,  maiden,"  said  Philip  :  "  but  tell 
me  your  name,  that  I  may  address  you  as  I  ought." 

"  My  name  is  Amine,"  replied  she,  retreating  a  little. 

"I  thank  you  for  that  little  confidence;  but  I  must  not 
dally.  What  arms  have  you  in  the  house,  and  have  you 
ammunition  ?  " 

"  Both.     I  wish  that  my  father  would  come  home." 

"  And  so  do  I,"  replied  Philip,  "  devoutly  wish  he  would, 
before  these  murderers  come  ;  but  not,  I  trust,  while  the  attack 
is  making,  for  there's  a  carbine  loaded  expressly  for  his  head, 
and  if  they  make  him  prisoner,  they  will  not  spare  his  life, 
unless  his  gold  and  your  person  are  given  in  ransom.  But  the 
arms,  maiden — where  are  they  ?  " 

"  Follow  me,"  replied  Amine,  leading  Philip  to  an  inner 
room  on  the  upper  floor.  It  was  the  sanctum  of  her  father, 
and  was  surrounded  with  shelves  filled  with  bottles  and  boxes 
of  drugs.  In  one  corner  was  an  iron  chest,  and  over  the 
mantelpiece  were  a  brace  of  carbines  and  three  pistols. 

"They  are  all  loaded,"  observed  Amine,  pointing  to  them, 
and  laying  on  the  table  the  one  which  she  had  held  in  her 
hand. 

Philip  took  down  the  arms,  and  examined  all  the  primings. 
He  then  took  up  from  the  table  the  pistol  which  Amine  had 
laid  there,  and  threw  open  the  pan.  It  was  equally  well  pre- 
pared. Philip  closed  the  pan,  and  with  a  smile  observed — 

"  So  this  was  meant  for  me,  Amine  ?  " 

"  No — not  for  you — but  for  a  traitor,  had  one  gained 
admittance." 

"  Now,  maiden,"  observed  Philip,  "  I  shall  station  myself  at 
the  casement  which  you  opened,  but  without  a  light  in  the 
room.  You  may  remain  here,  and  can  turn  the  key  for  your 
security." 

"You  little  know  me,"  replied  Amine.     "In  that  way  at 
least  I  am  not  fearful ;  I  must  remain  near  you  and  reload  the 
arms — a  task  in  which  I  am  well  practised." 
35 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"No,  no,"  replied  Philip;  "you  might  be  hurt" 

"  I  may.  But  think  you  I  will  remain  here  idly,  when  1  can 
assist  one  who  risks  his  life  for  me  ?  I  know  my  duty,  sir,  and 
I  shall  perform  it." 

"  You  must  not  risk  your  life,  Amine,"  replied  Philip ;  "  my 
aim  will  not  be  steady  if  I  know  that  you're  in  danger.  But  I 
must  take  the  arms  into  the  chamber,  for  the  time  is  come." 

Philip,  assisted  by  Amine,  carried  the  carbines  and  pistols 
into  the  adjoining  chamber ;  and  Amine  then  left  Philip, 
carrying  witli  her  the  light.  Philip,  as  soon  as  he  was  alone, 
opened  the  casement  and  looked  out — there  was  no  one  to  be 
seen ;  he  listened ;  but  all  was  silent.  The  moon  was  just 
rising  above  the  distant  hill,  but  her  light  was  dimmed  by 
fleecy  clouds,  and  Philip  watched  for  a  few  minutes  ;  at  length 
he  heard  a  whispering  below.  He  looked  out,  and  could  dis- 
tinguish through  the  dark  the  four  expected  assailants,  standing 
close  to  the  door  of  the  house.  He  walked  away  softly  from 
the  window,  and  went  into  the  next  room  to  Amine,  whom  he 
found  busy  preparing  the  ammunition. 

"  Amine,  they  are  at  the  door,  in  consultation.  You  can  see 
them  now  without  risk.  I  thank  them,  for  they  will  convince 
you  that  I  have  told  the  truth." 

Amine,  without  reply,  went  into  the  front  room  and  looked 
out  of  the  window.  She  returned,  and  laying  her  hand  upon 
Philip's  arm,  she  said  - 

"  Grant  me  your  pardon  for  my  doubts.  I  fear  nothing  now 
but  that  my  father  may  return  too  soon,  and  they  seize  him." 

Philip  left  the  room  again,  to  make  his  reconnaissance.  The 
robbers  did  not  appear  to  have  made  up  their  mind — the 
strength  of  the  door  defied  their  utmost  efforts,  so  they  at- 
tempted stratagem.  They  knocked,  and  as  there  was  no  reply, 
they  continued  to  knock  louder  and  louder  :  not  meeting  with 
success,  they  held  another  cousultation,  and  the  muzzle  of  a 
carbine  was  then  put  to  the  keyhole,  and  the  piece  discharged. 
The  lock  of  the  door  was  blown  off,  but  the  iron  bars  which 
crossed  the  door  within,  above  and  below,  still  held  it  fast. 

Although  Philip  would  have  been  justified  in  firing  upon 
the  robbers  when  he  first  perceived  them  in  consultation  at  the 
door,  still  there  is  that  feeling  in  a  generous  mind  which  pre- 
vents the  taking  away  of  life,  except  from  stern  necessity ;  and 
this  feeling  made  him  withhold  his  fire  until  hostilities  had 
26 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

actually  commenced.  He  now  levelled  one  of  the  carbines  at 
the  head  of  the  robber  nearest  to  the  door,  who  was  busy  exa- 
mining the  effect  which  the  discharge  of  the  piece  had  made, 
and  what  further  obstacles  intervened.  The  aim  was  true, 
and  the  man  fell  dead,  while  the  others  started  back  with 
surprise  at  the  unexpected  retaliation.  But  in  a  second  or 
two  a  pistol  was  discharged  at  Philip,  who  still  remained  leaning 
out  of  the  casement,  fortunately  without  effect  ;  and  the  next 
moment  he  felt  himself  drawn  away,  so  as  to  be  protected 
from  their  fire.  It  was  Amine,  who,  unknown  to  Philip,  had 
been  standing  by  his  side. 

"  You  must  not  expose  yourself,  Philip,"  said  she  in  a  low 
tone. 

"  She  called  me  Philip,"  thought  he,  but  made  no  reply. 

"They  will  be  watching  for  you  at  the  casement  now,"  said 
Amine.  "  Take  the  other  carbine,  and  go  below  in  the 
passage.  If  the  lock  of  the  door  is  blown  off,  they  may  put 
their  arms  in,  perhaps,  and  remove  the  bars.  I  do  not  think 
they  can,  but  I'm  not  sure  ;  at  all  events,  it  is  there  you 
should  now  be,  as  there  they  will  not  expect  you." 

"  You  are  right,"  replied  Philip,  going  down. 

"  But  you  must  not  fire  more  than  once  there  ;  if  another 
fall,  there  will  be  but  two  to  deal  with,  and  they  cannot  watch 
the  casement  and  force  admittance  too.  Go — I  will  reload 
the  carbine." 

Philip  descended  softly  and  without  a  light.  He  went  up  to 
the  door,  and  perceived  that  one  of  the  miscreants,  with  his 
arm  through  the  hole  where  the  lock  was  blown  off,  was 
working  at  the  upper  iron  bar,  which  he  could  just  reach.  He 
presented  his  carbine,  and  was  about  to  fire  the  whole  charge 
into  the  body  of  the  man  under  his  raised  arm,  when  there 
was  a  report  of  firearms  from  the  robbers  outside. 

"  Amine  has  exposed  herself,"  thought  Philip,  "  and  may 
be  hurt." 

The  desire  of  vengeance  prompted  him  first  to  fire  his  piece 
through  the  man's  body,  and  then  he  flew  up  the  stairs  to 
ascertain  the  state  of  Amine.  She  was  not  at  the  casement ; 
he  darted  into  the  inner  room,  and  found  her  deliberately 
loading  the  carbine. 

"  My  God  !  how  you  frightened  me,  Amine.     I  thought  by 
their  firing  that  you  had  shown  yourself  at  the  window," 
87 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Indeed  I  did  not ;  but  I  thought  that  when  you  fired 
through  the  door  they  might  return  your  fire,  and  you  be 
hurt ;  so  I  went  to  the  side  of  the  casement  and  pushed  out 
on  a  stick  some  of  my  father's  clothes,  and  they  who  were 
watching  for  you  fired  immediately." 

"  Indeed,  Amine !  who  could  have  expected  such  courage 
and  such  coolness  in  one  so  young  and  beautiful  ?  "  exclaimed 
Philip,  with  surprise. 

"  Are  none  but  ill-favoured  people  brave,  then  ?  "  replied 
Amine,  smiling. 

"I  did  not  mean  that,  Amine — but  I  am  losing  time.  I  must 
to  the  door  again.  Give  me  that  carbine,  and  reload  this." 

Philip  crept  downstairs  that  he  might  reconnoitre,  but  before 
he  had  gained  the  door  he  heard  at  a  distance  the  voice  of 
Mynheer  Poots.  Amine,  who  also  heard  it,  was  in  a  moment 
at  his  side  with  a  loaded  pistol  in  each  hand. 

"  Fear  not,  Amine,"  said  Philip,  as  he  unbarred  the  door, 
"  there  are  but  two,  and  your  father  shall  be  saved." 

The  door  was  opened,  and  Philip,  seizing  his  carbine,  rushed 
out ;  he  found  Mynheer  Poots  on  the  ground  between  the  two 
men,  one  of  whom  had  raised  his  knife  to  plunge  it  into  his 
body,  when  the  ball  of  the  carbine  whizzed  through  his  head. 
The  last  of  the  robbers  closed  with  Philip,  and  a  desperate 
struggle  ensued ;  it  was,  however,  soon  decided  by  Amine 
stepping  forward  and  firing  one  of  the  pistols  through  the 
robber's  body. 

We  must  here  inform  our  readers  that  Mynheer  Poots, 
when  coming  home,  had  heard  the  report  of  firearms  in  the 
direction  of  his  own  house.  The  recollection  of  his  daughter 
and  of  his  money — for  to  do  him  justice  he  did  love  her  best 
• — had  lent  him  wings ;  he  forgot  that  he  was  a  feeble  old 
man  and  without  arms ;  all  he  thought  of  was  to  gain  his 
habitation.  On  he  came,  reckless,  frantic,  and  shouting,  and 
rushed  into  the  arms  of  the  two  robbers,  who  seized  and 
would  have  despatched  him,  had  not  Philip  so  opportunely 
come  to  his  assistance. 

As  soon  as  the  last  robber  fell,  Philip  disengaged  himself 
and  went  to  the  assistance  of  Mynheer  Poots,  whom  he  raised 
up  in  his  arms  and  carried  into  the  house  as  if  he  were  an 
infant.  The  old  man  was  still  in  a  state  of  delirium  from  fear 
and  previous  excitement 

38 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

In  a  few  minutes  Mynheer  Pools  w&s  more  coherent. 

"  My  daughter  ! "  exclaimed  he — "  my  daughter  !  v.  here  is 
she?" 

"  She  is  here,  father,  and  safe,"  replied  Amine. 

"Ah!  my  child  is  safe,"  said  he,  opening  his  eyes  and 
staring.  "  Yes,  it  is  even  so — and  my  money — my  money — 
where  is  my  money  ?"  continued  he,  starting  up. 

"  Quite  safe,  father." 

"  Quite  safe — you  say  quite  safe — are  you  sure  cf  it  ? — let 
me  see." 

"  There  it  is,  father,  as  you  may  perceive,  quite  safe — thanks 
to  one  whom  you  have  not  treated  so  well." 

"  Who — what  do  you  mean  ? — Ah,  yes,  I  see  him  now — 'tis 
Philip  Vanderdecken — he  owes  me  three  guilders  and  a  half, 
and  there  is  a  phial — did  he  save  you — and  my  money, 
child  ?  " 

"  He  did,  indeed,  at  the  risk  of  his  life." 

"Well,  well,  I  will  forgive  him  the  whole  debt — yes,  the 
whole  of  it ;  but — the  phial  is  of  no  use  to  him — he  must 
return  that.  Give  me  some  water." 

It  was  some  time  before  the  old  man  could  regain  his 
perfect  reason.  Philip  left  him  with  his  daughter,  and  taking 
a  brace  of  loaded  pistols,  went  out  to  ascertain  the  fate  of  the 
four  assailants.  The  moon  having  climbed  above  the  banks  of 
clouds  which  had  obscured  her,  was  now  high  in  the  heavens, 
shining  bright,  and  he  could  distinguish  clearly.  The  two 
men  lying  across  the  threshold  of  the  cloor  were  quite  dead. 
The  others,  who  had  seized  upon  Mvnheer  Poots,  were  still 
alive,  but  one  was  expiring  and  the  other  bled  fast.  Philip 
put  a  few  questions  to  the  latter,  but  he  either  would  not 
or  could  not  make  any  reply ;  he  removed  their  weapons  and 
returned  to  the  house,  where  he  found  the  old  man  attended 
by  his  daughter  in  a  state  of  comparative  composure. 

"I  thank  you,  Philip  Vanderdecken — I  thank  you  much. 
You  have  saved  my  dear  child,  and  my  money — that  is  little, 
very  little— for  I  am  poor.  May  you  live  long  and  happily  !  " 

Philip  mused  ;  the  letter  and  his  vow  were,  for  the  first 
time  since  he  fell  in  with  the  robbers,  recalled  to  his  recollec- 
tion, and  a  shade  passed  over  his  countenance. 

"  Long  and  happily — no,  no,"  muttered  he,  with  an  in- 
voluntary shake  of  the  head. 

,39 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"And  I  must  thank  you,"  said  Amine,  looking  inquiringly 
in  Philip's  face.  "  Oh,  how  much  have  I  to  thank  you  for ! — 
and  indeed  I  am  grateful." 

"  Yes,  yes,  she  is  very  grateful,"  interrupted  the  old  man ; 
"  but  we  are  poor — very  poor.  I  talked  about  my  money 
because  I  have  so  little,  and  I  cannot  afford  to  lose  it ;  but 
you  shall  not  pay  me  the  three  guilders  and  a  half — I  am 
content  to  lose  that,  Mr.  Philip." 

"  Why  should  you  lose  even  that,  Mynheer  Poots  ? — I 
promised  to  pay  you,  and  will  keep  my  word.  I  have  plenty 
of  money — thousands  of  guilders,  and  know  not  what  to  do 
with  them." 

"  You — you — thousands  of  guilders  ! "  exclaimed  Poots. 
"  Pooh,  nonsense,  that  won't  do." 

"  1  lepeat  to  you,  Amine,"  said  Philip,  "that  I  have  thou- 
sands of  guilders  :  you  know  I  would  not  tell  you  a.  falsehood." 

"  I  believed  you  when  you  said  so  to  my  father,"  replied 
Amine. 

"Then,  perhaps,  as  you  have  so  much,  and  I  am  so  very 
poor,  Mr.  Vanderdecken— 

But  Amine  put  her  hand  upon  her  father's  lips,  and  the 
sentence  was  not  finished. 

"  Father,"  said  Amine,  "  it  is  time  that  we  retire.  You 
must  leave  us  for  to-night,  Philip." 

"  I  will  not,"  replied  Philip;  "nor,  you  may  depend  upon 
it,  will  I  sleep.  You  may  both  to  bed  in  safety.  It  is  indeed 
time  that  you  retire — good  night,  Mynheer  Poots.  I  will  but 
ask  a  lamp,  and  then  I  leave  you — Amine,  good  night." 

"  Good  night,"  said  Amine,  extending  her  hand,  "  and 
many,  many  thanks." 

"Thousands  of  guilders  !"  muttered  the  old  m-ui,  as  Philip 
left  the  room  and  went  below. 


CHAPTER  V 

PHILIP  VANDERDECKEN  sat  down  at  the  porch  of  the 
door ;  he  swept  his  hair  from  his  forehead,  which  he  exposed 
to  the  fanning  of  the  breeze  ;  for  the  continued  excitement 
of  the  last  three  days  had  left  a  fever  on  his  brain  which 
40 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

made  him  restless  and  confused.  He  longed  for  repose,  but 
he  knew  that  for  him  there  was  no  rest.  He  had  his  fore- 
bodings— he  perceived  in  the  vista  of  futurity  a  long-con- 
tinued chain  of  danger  and  disaster,  even  to  death  ;  yet  he 
beheld  it  without  emotion  and  without  dread.  He  felt  as  if 
it  were  only  three  days  that  he  had  begun  to  exist ;  he  was 
melancholy,  but  not  unhappy.  His  thoughts  were  constantly 
recurring  to  the  fatal  letter — its  strange  supernatural  disap- 
pearance seemed  pointedly  to  establish  its  supernatural  origin, 
and  that  the  mission  had  been  intended  for  him  alone ;  and 
the  relic  in  his  possession  more  fully  substantiated  the  fact. 

"  It  is  my  fate,  my  duty,"  thought  Philip.  Having  satis- 
factorily made  up  his  mind  to  these  conclusions,  his  thoughts 
reverted  to  the  beauty,  the  courage,  and  presence  of  mind 
shown  by  Amine.  "And,"  thought  he,  as  he  watched  the 
moon  soaring  high  in  the  heavens,  "is  this  fair  creature's 
destiny  to  be  interwoven  with  mine  ?  The  events  of  the  last 
three  days  would  almost  warrant  the  supposition.  Heaven 
only  knows,  and  Heaven's  will  be  done.  I  have  vowed,  and 
my  vow  is  registered,  that  I  will  devote  my  life  to  the  release 
of  my  unfortunate  father — but  does  that  prevent  my  loving 
Amine  ?  No,  no ;  the  sailor  on  the  Indian  seas  must  pass 
months  and  months  on  shore  before  he  can  return  to  his  duty. 
My  search  must  be  on  the  broad  ocean,  but  how  often  may  I 
return  ?  and  why  am  I  to  be  debarred  the  solace  of  a  smiling 
hearth  ? — And  yet — do  I  right  in  winning  the  affections  of 
one  who,  if  she  loves,  would,  I  am  convinced,  love  so  dearly, 
fondly,  truly — ought  I  to  persuade  her  to  mate  herself  with 
one  whose  life  will  be  so  precarious  ? — But  is  not  every 
sailor's  life  precarious,  daring  the  angry  waves,  with  but  an 
inch  of  plank  'tween  him  and  death  ?  Besides,  I  am  chosen 
to  fulfil  a  task — and  if  so,  what  can  hurt  me,  till  in  Heaven's 
own  time  it  is  accomplished  ?  but  then  how  soon,  and  how 
is  it  to  end  ? — in  death  !  I  wish  my  blood  were  cooler,  that 
I  might  reason  better." 

Such  were  the  meditations  of  Philip  Vanderdecken,  and  long 
did  he  revolve  such  chances  in  his  mind.  At  last  the  day 
dawned,  and  as  he  perceived  the  blush  upon  the  horizon,  less 
careful  of  his  watch  he  slumbered  where  he  sat.  A  slight 
pressure  on  the  shoulder  made  him  start  up  and  draw  the  pistoJ 
from  his  bosom.  He  turned  round  and  beheld  Amine. 
41 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

w  And  that  pistol  was  intended  for  me,"  said  Amine,  smiling, 
repeating  Philip's  words  of  the  night  before. 

"  For  you,  Araine  ? — yes,  to  defend  you,  if  'twere  necessary, 
once  more." 

"  I  know  it  would — how  kind  of  you  to  watch  this  tedious 
night  after  so  much  exertion  and  fatigue ;  but  it  is  now  broad 
day." 

"  Until  I  saw  the  dawn,  Amine,  I  kept  a  faithful  watch." 

"  But  now  retire  and  take  some  rest  My  father  is  risen — 
you  can  lie  down  on  his  bed." 

"  I  thank  you,  but  I  feel  no  wish  for  sleep.  There  is  much 
to  do.  We  must  to  the  burgomaster  and  state  the  facts,  and 
these  bodies  must  remain  where  they  are  until  the  whole  is 
known.  Will  your  father  go,  Amine,  or  shall  I  ?  " 

"  My  father  surely  is  the  more  proper  person,  as  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  house.  You  must  remain  ;  and  if  you  will  not 
sleep,  you  must  take  some  refreshment.  I  will  go  in  and  tell 
my  father ;  he  has  already  taken  his  morning's  meaL" 

Amine  went  in,  and  soon  returned  with  her  father,  who  had 
consented  to  go  to  the  burgomaster.  He  saluted  Philip  kindly 
as  he  came  out ;  shuddered  as  he  passed  on  one  side  to  avoid 
stepping  over  the  dead  bodies,  and  went  off  at  a  quick  pace  to 
the  adjacent  town,  where  the  burgomaster  resided. 

Amine  desired  Philip  to  follow  her,  and  they  went  into  her 
father's  room,  where,  to  his  surprise,  he  found  some  coffee 
ready  for  him— at  that  time  a  raritj-,  and  one  which  Philip  did 
not  expect  to  find  in  the  house  of  the  penurious  Mynheer  Poots  ; 
but  it  was  a  luxury  which,  from  his  former  life,  the  old  man 
could  not  dispense  with. 

Philip,  who  had  not  tasted  food  for  nearly  twenty -four  hours, 
was  not  sorry  to  avail  himself  of  what  was  placed  before  him. 
Amine  sat  down  opposite  to  him,  and  was  silent  during  his 
repast. 

"  Amine,"  said  Philip  at  last,  "  I  have  had  plenty  of  time  for 
reflection  during  this  night,  as  I  watched  at  the  door.  May  I 
speak  freely  ?  " 

"  Why  not  ?  "  replied  Amine.  "  I  feel  assured  that  you  will 
say  nothing  that  you  should  not  say,  or  should  not  meet  a 
maiden's  ear." 

"You  do  me  justice,  Amine.  My  thoughts  have  been  upon 
you  and  your  father.  You  cannot  stay  in  this  lone  habitation." 
42 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

*  I  feel  it  is  too  lonely  ;  that  is,  for  his  safety — perhaps 'for 
mine — but  you  know  my  father — the  very  loneliness  suits 
him,  the  price  paid  for  rent  is  little,  and  he  is  careful  of  his 
money." 

"  The  man  who  would  be  careful  of  his  money  should  place 
it  in  security — here  it  is  not  secure.  Now  hear  me,  Amine. 
I  have  a  cottage,  surrounded,  as  you  may  have  heard,  by  many 
others,  which  mutually  protect  each  other.  That  cottage  I  am 
about  to  leave — perhaps  for  ever ;  for  I  intend  to  sail  by  the 
first  ship  to  the  Indian  seas." 

"The  Indian  seas !  why  so? — did  you  not  last  night  talk  of 
thousands  of  guilders  ?  " 

"  I  did,  and  they  are  there  ;  but,  Amine,  I  must  go — it  is  my 
duty.  Ask  me  no  more,  but  listen  to  what  I  now  propose. 
Your  father  must  live  in  my  cottage  ;  he  must  take  care  of  it 
for  me  in  my  absence  ;  he  will  do  me  a  favour  by  consenting, 
and  you  must  persuade  him.  You  will  there  be  sale.  He  must 
also  take  care  of  my  money  for  me.  I  want  it  not  at  present 
—  I  cannot  take  it  with  me." 

"  My  father  is  not  to  be  trusted  with  the  money  of  other 
people." 

"  Why  does  your  father  hoard  ?  He  cannot  take  his  money 
with  him  when  he  is  called  away.  It  must  be  all  for  you — 
and  is  not  then  my  money  safe  ?  " 

"  Leave  it  then  in  my  charge,  and  it  will  be  safe ;  but  why 
need  you  go  and  risk  your  life  upon  the  water,  when  you  have 
such  ample  means  ?  " 

"Amine,  ask  not  that  question.  It  is  my  duty  as  a  son, 
and  more  I  cannot  tell,  at  least  at  present." 

"If  it  is  your  duty,  I  ask  no  more.  It  was  not  womanish 
curiosity — no,  no — it  was  a  better  feeling,  I  assure  you,  which 
prompted  me  to  put  the  question." 

"  And  what  was  the  better  feeling,  Amine  ?" 

"I  hardly  know — many  good  feelings  perhaps  mixed  up 
together — gratitude,  esteem,  respect,  confidence,  goodwill. 
Are  not  these  sufficient  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,  Amine,  and  much  to  gain  upon  so  short  an 
acquaintance  ;  but  still  I  feel  them  all,  and  more,  for  you.  If, 
then,  you  feel  so  much  for  me,  do  oblige  me  by  persuading 
your  father  to  leave  this  lonely  house  this  day,  and  take  up 
his  abode  in  mine." 

43 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"And  where  do  you  intend  to  go  yourself?  " 

"  If  your  father  will  not  admit  me  as  a  boarder  for  the  short 
time  I  remain  here,  I  will  seek  some  shelter  elsewhere;  but 
if  he  will,  I  will  indemnify  him  well — that  is,  if  you  raise  no 
objection  to  my  being  for  a  few  days  in  the  house  ?  " 

"  Why  should  I  ?  Our  habitation  is  no  longer  safe,  and 
you  offer  us  a  shelter.  It  were,  indeed,  unjust  and  most  un- 
grateful to  turn  you  out  from  beneath  your  own  roof." 

"Then  persuade  him,  Amine.  I  will  accept  of  nothing, 
but  take  it  as  a  favour ;  for  I  should  depart  in  sorrow  if  I  saw 
you  not  in  safety.  Will  you  promise  me  ?  " 

"  I  do  promise  to  use  my  best  endeavours — nay,  I  may  as 
well  say  at  once  it  shall  be  so ;  for  I  know  my  influence. 
Here  is  my  hand  upon  it.  Will  that  content  you  ?  " 

Philip  took  the  small  hand  extended  towards  him.  His  feel- 
ings overcame  his  discretion;  he  raised  it  to  his  lips.  He  looked 
up  to  see  if  Amine  was  displeased,  and  found  her  dark  eye 
fixed  upon  him,  as  once  before  when  she  admitted  him,  as  if 
she  would  see  his  thoughts — but  the  hand  was  not  withdrawn. 

"  Indeed,  Amine,"  said  Philip,  kissing  her  hand  once  more, 
"you  may  confide  in  me." 

"  I  hope — I  think — nay,  I  am  sure  I  may,"  at  last  replied 
she. 

Philip  released  her  hand.  Amine  returned  to  the  seat, 
and  for  some  time  remained  silent,  and  in  a  pensive  attitude. 
Philip  also  had  his  own  thoughts,  and  did  not  open  his  lips. 
At  last  Amine  spoke. 

"I  think  I  have  heard  my  father  say  that  your  mother  was 
very  poor — a  little  deranged ;  and  that  there  was  a  chamber 
in  the  house  which  had  been  shut  up  for  years." 

"  It  was  shut  up  till  yesterday." 

"  And  there  you  found  your  money  ?  Did  your  mother 
not  know  of  the  money  ?  " 

"  She  did,  for  she  spoke  of  it  on  her  deathbed." 

"  There  must  have  been  some  potent  reasons  for  not  open- 
ing the  chamber." 

"  There  were." 

"What  were  they,  Philip?"  said  Amine,  in  a  soft  and  low 
tone  of  voice. 

"  I  must  not  tell,  at  least  I  ought  not.     This  must  satisfy 
you — 'twas  the  fear  of  an  apparition." 
44 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"What  apparition?" 

"  She  said  that  my  father  had  appeared  to  her." 

"  And  did  he,  think  you,  Philip  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  did.  But  I  can  answer  no  more 
questions,  Amine.  The  chamber  is  open  now,  and  there  is 
no  fear  of  his  reappearance." 

"  I  fear  not  that,"  replied  Amine,  musing.  "  But,"  con- 
tinued she,  "is  not  this  connected  with  your  resolution  of 
going  to  sea  ?" 

"  So  far  will  I  answer  you,  that  it  has  decided  me  to  go  to 
sea ;  but  I  pray  you  ask  no  more.  It  is  painful  to  refuse  you, 
and  my  duty  forbids  me  to  speak  further." 

For  some  minutes  they  were  both  silent,  when  Amine 
resumed — 

"You  were  so  anxious  to  possess  that  relic,  that  I  cannot  help 
thinking  it  has  connection  with  the  mystery.  Is  it  not  so  ?  " 

"  For  the  last  time,  Amine,  I  will  answer  your  question — it 
has  to  do  with  it :  but  now  no  more." 

Philip's  blunt  and  almost  rude  manner  of  finishing  his  speech 
•was  riot  lost  upon  Amine,  who  replied— 

"You  are  so  engrossed  with  other  thoughts,  that  you  have 
not  felt  the  compliment  shown  you  by  my  taking  such  interest 
about  you,  sir." 

"  Yes,  I  do — I  feel  and  thank  you  too,  Amine.  Forgive  me, 
if  I  have  been  rude ;  but  recollect,  the  secret  is  not  mine — at 
least,  I  feel  as  if  it  were  not.  God  knows,  I  wish  I  never  had 
known  it,  for  it  has  blasted  all  my  hopes  in  life." 

Philip  was  silent ;  and  when  he  raised  his  eyes,  he  found 
that  Amine's  were  fixed  upon  him. 

"  Would  you  read  my  thoughts,  Amine,  or  my  secret  ?  " 

"  Your  thoughts,  perhaps — your  secret  I  would  not ;  yet  do 
I  grieve  that  it  should  oppress  you  so  heavily  as  evidently  it 
does.  It  must,  indeed,  be  one  of  awe  to  bear  down  a  mind 
like  yours,  Philip." 

"  Where  did  you  learn  to  be  so  brave,  Amine  ?  "  said  Philip, 
changing  the  conversation. 

**  Circumstances  make  people  brave  or  otherwise  ;  those  who 
are  accustomed  to  difficulty  and  danger  fear  them  not." 

"And  where  have  you  met  with  them,  Amine  ?  " 

"In  the  country  where  I  was  born,  not  in  this  dank  and 
muddy  land." 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"Will  you  trust  me  with  the  story  of  your  former  life, 
Amine  ?  I  can  be  secret,  if  you  wish." 

"  That  you  can  be  secret,  perhaps  against  ray  wish,  you  have 
already  proved  to  me,"  replied  Amine,  smiling;  "and  you 
have  a  claim  to  know  something  of  the  life  you  have  preserved. 
I  cannot  tell  you  much,  but  what  I  can  will  be  sufficient.  My 
father,  when  a  lad  on  board  of  a  trading  vessel,  was  taken  by 
the  Moors,  and  sold  as  a  slave  to  a  hakim,  or  physician,  of 
their  country.  Finding  him  very  intelligent,  the  Moor  brought 
him  up  as  an  assistant,  and  it  was  under  this  man  that  he 
obtained  a  knowledge  of  the  art.  In  a  few  years  he  was  equal 
to  his  master  ;  but,  as  a  slave,  he  worked  not  for  himself.  You 
know,  indeed  it  cannot  be  concealed,  my  father's  avarice.  He 
sighed  to  become  as  wealthy  as  his  master,  and  to  obtain  his 
freedom ;  he  became  a  follower  of  Mahomet,  after  which  he 
was  free,  and  practised  for  himself.  He  took  a  wife  from  an 
Arab  family,  the  daughter  of  a  chief  whom  he  had  restored  to 
health,  and  he  settled  in  the  country.  I  was  born;  he  amassed 
wealth,  and  became  much  celebrated  :  but  the  son  of  a  Bey 
dying  under  his  hands  was  the  excuse  for  persecuting  him. 
His  head  was  forfeited,  but  he  escaped  ;  not,  however,  without 
the  loss  of  all  his  beloved  wealth.  My  mother  and  I  went  with 
him ;  he  fled  to  the  Bedouins,  with  whom  we  remained  some 
years.  There  I  was  accustomed  to  rapid  marches,  wild  and 
fierce  attacks,  defeat  and  flight,  and  oftentimes  to  indiscrimi- 
nate slaughter.  But  the  Bedouins  paid  not  well  for  my  father's 
services,  and  gold  was  his  idol.  Hearing  that  the  Bey  was 
dead,  he  returned  to  Cairo,  where  he  again  practised.  He  was 
allowed  once  more  to  amass,  until  the  heap  was  sufficient  to 
excite  the  cupidity  of  the  new  Bey  ;  but  this  time  he  was  for- 
tunately made  acquainted  with  the  intentions  of  the  ruler. 
He  again  escaped,  with  a  portion  of  his  wealth,  in  a  small 
vessel,  and  gained  the  Spanish  coast ;  but  he  never  has  been 
able  to  retain  his  money  long.  Before  he  arrived  in  this 
country  he  had  been  robbed  of  almost  all,  and  has  now  been 
for  these  three  years  laying  up  again.  We  were  but  one  year 
at  Middleburg,  and  from  thence  removed  to  this  place.  Such 
is  the  history  of  my  life,  Philip." 

"  Does  your  father  still  hold  the  Mahometan  faith,  Amine?" 

"  1  know  not.    I  think  he  holds  no  faith  whatever :  at  least 
he  hath  taught  me  none.     His  god  is  gold." 
46 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Is  the  God  who  made  this  beautiful  world,  and  all  which 
it  contains — the  God  of  nature — name  Him  as  you  will.  This 
I  feel,  Philip,  but  more  I  fain  would  know ;  there  are  so 
many  faiths,  but  surely  they  must  be  but  different  paths  lead- 
ing alike  to  heaven.  Yours  is  the  Christian  faith,  Philip.  Is 
it  the  true  one  ?  But  every  one  calls  his  own  the  true  one, 
whatever  his  creed  may  be." 

"  It  is  the  true  and  only  one,  Amine.  Could  I  but  reveal — • 
I  have  such  dreadful  proofs " 

"That  your  faith  is  true  ;  then  is  it  not  your  duty  to  reveal 
these  proofs  ?  Tell  me,  are  you  bound  by  any  solemn  obliga- 
tion never  to  reveal  ? " 

"No,  I  am  not;  yet  do  I  feel  as  if  I  were.  But  I  hear 
voices—  it  must  be  your  father  and  the  authorities — I  must  go 
down  and  meet  them." 

Philip  rose  and  went  downstairs.  Amine's  eyes  followed 
him  as  he  went,  and  she  remained  looking  towards  the  door. 

"  Is  it  possible,"  said  she,  sweeping  the  hair  from  off  her 
brow,  "so  soon, — yes,  yes,  'tis  even  so.  I  feel  that  I  would 
sooner  share  his  hidden  woe — his  dangers — even  death  itself 
were  preferable  with  him,  than  ease  and  happiness  with  any 
other.  And  it  shall  be  strange  indeed  if  I  do  not.  This 
night  my  father  shall  move  into  his  cottage  :  I  will  prepare 
at  once." 

The  report  of  Philip  and  Mynheer  Poots  was  taken  down 
by  the  authorities,  the  bodies  examined,  and  one  or  two  of 
them  recognised  as  well-known  marauders.  They  were  then  re- 
moved by  the  order  of  the  burgomaster.  The  authorities  broke 
up  their  council,  and  Philip  and  Mynheer  Poots  were  permitted 
to  return  to  Amine.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to  repeat  the  con- 
versation which  ensued  :  it  will  be  sufficient  to  state  that  Poots 
yielded  to  the  arguments  employed  by  Amine  and  Philip, 
particularly  the  one  of  paying  no  rent.  A  conveyance  for  the 
furniture  and  medicines  was  procured,  and  in  the  afternoon 
most  of  the  effects  were  taken  away.  It  was  not,  however,  till 
dusk  that  the  strong  box  of  the  doctor  was  put  into  the  cart, 
and  Philip  went  with  it  as  a  protector.  Amine  also  walked  by 
the  side  of  the  vehicle  with  her  father.  As  may  be  supposed, 
it  was  late  that  night  before  they  had  made  their  arrangements, 
and  had  retired  to  rest. 

47 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 


CHAPTER  VI 

J.  HIS,  then,  is  the  chamber  which  has  so  long  been  closed," 
said  Amine,  on  entering  it  the  next  morning,  long  before 
Philip  had  awakened  from  the  sound  sleep  produced  by  the 
watching  of  the  night  before.  "  Yes,  indeed,  it  has  the  air 
of  having  long  been  closed."  Amine  looked  around  her,  and 
then  examined  the  furniture.  Her  eyes  were  attracted  to 
the  bird-cages ;  she  looked  into  them  : — "  Poor  little  things  ! " 
continued  she,  "  and  here  it  was  his  father  appeared  unto  his 
mother.  Well,  it  may  be  so — Philip  saith  that  he  hath  proofs ; 
and  why  should  he  not  appear  ?  Were  Philip  dead,  I  should 
rejoice  to  see  his  spirit — at  least  it  would  be  something. 
What  am  I  saying — unfaithful  lips,  thus  to  betray  my  secret  ? 
— The  table  thrown  over — that  looks  like  the  work  of  fear ; 
a  workbox,  with  all  its  implements  scattered — only  a  woman's 
fear :  a  mouse  might  have  caused  all  this ;  and  yet  there 
is  something  solemn  in  the  simple  fact  that,  for  so  many 
years,  not  a  living  being  has  crossed  these  boards.  Even 
that  a  table  thus  overthrown  could  thus  remain  for  years 
seems  scarcely  natural,  and  therefore  has  its  power  on  the 
mind.  I  wonder  not  that  Philip  feels  there  is  so  heavy  a 
secret  belonging  to  this  room — but  it  must  not  remain  in 
this  condition — it  must  be  occupied  at  once." 

Amine,  who  had  long  been  accustomed  to  attend  upon  her 
father,  and  perform  the  household  duties,  now  commenced  her 
intended  labours. 

Every  part  of  the  room,  and  every  piece  of  furniture  in  it, 
were  cleaned  ;  even  the  cobwebs  and  dust  were  cleared  away, 
and  the  sofa  and  table  brought  from  the  corner  to  the  centre 
of  the  room ;  the  melancholy  little  prisons  were  removed ; 
and  when  Amine's  work  of  neatness  was  complete,  and  the 
sun  shone  brightly  into  the  opened  window,  the  chamber 
wore  the  appearance  of  cheerfulness. 

Amine  had  the  intuitive  good  sense  to  feel  that  strong 
impressions  wear  away  when  the  objects  connected  with 
them  are  removed.  She  resolved  then  to  make  Philip  more 
at  ease  ;  for,  with  all  the  fire  and  warmth  of  blood  inherent 
in  her  race,  she  had  taken  his  image  to  her  heart,  and  was 
48 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

determined  to  win  him.  Again  and  again  did  she  resume 
her  labour,  until  the  pictures  about  the  room  and  every 
other  article  looked  fresh  and  clean. 

Not  only  the  bird-cages,  but  the  workbox  and  all  the 
implements  were  removed  ;  and  the  piece  of  embroidery, 
the  taking  up  of  which  had  made  Philip  recoil  as  if  he  had 
touched  an  adder,  was  put  away  with  the  rest.  Philip  had 
left  the  keys  on  the  floor.  Amine  opened  the  buffets,  cleaned 
the  glazed  doors,  and  was  busy  rubbing  up  the  silver  flagons, 
when  her  father  came  into  the  room. 

"  Mercy  on  me  !  "  exclaimed  Mynheer  Poots  ;  "  and  is  all 
that  silver  ? — then  it  must  be  true,  and  he  has  thousands  of 
guilders  ;  but  where  are  they  ?  " 

"  Never  do  you  mind,  father ;  yours  are  now  safe,  and  for 
that  you  have  to  thank  Philip  Vanderdecken." 

"  Yes,  very  true ;  but  as  he  is  to  live  here — does  he  eat 
much  ? — what  will  he  pay  me  ?  He  ought  to  pay  well,  as  he 
has  so  much  money." 

Amine's  lips  were  curled  with  a  contemptuous  smile,  but 
she  made  no  reply 

"1  wonder  where  he  keeps  his  money ;  and  he  is  going  to 
sea  as  soon  as  he  can  get  a  ship  ?  Who  will  have  charge  of 
his  money  when  he  goes  ?  " 

"  I  shall  take  charge  of  it,  father,"  replied  Amine. 

"  Ah — yes — well — we  will  take  charge  of  it ;  the  ship  may 
be  lost."  ' 

"  No,  me  will  not  take  charge  of  it,  father ;  you  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  Look  after  your  own." 

Amine  placed  the  silver  in  the  buffets,  locked  the  doors, 
and  took  the  keys  with  her  when  she  went  out  to  prepare 
breakfast,  leaving  the  old  man  gazing  through  the  glazed 
doors  at  the  precious  metal  within.  His  eyes  were  riveted 
upon  it,  and  he  could  not  remove  them.  Every  minute  he 
muttered,  "Yes,  all  silver." 

Philip  came  downstairs ;  and  as  he  passed  by  the  room, 
intending  to  go  into  the  kitchen,  he  perceived  Mynheer 
Poots  at  the  buffet,  and  he  walked  into  the  room.  He 
was  surprised  as  well  as  pleased  with  the  alteration.  He 
felt  why  and  by  whom  it  was  done,  and  he  was  grate- 
ful. Amine  came  in  with  the  breakfast,  and  their  eyes 
gpoke  more  than  their  lips  could  have  done ;  and  Philip 
43  O 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

sat  down  to  his  meal  with  less  of  sorrow  and  gloom  upon  his 
brow. 

"  Mynheer  Pools,"  said  Philip,  as  soon  as  he  had  finished, 
"  I  intend  to  leave  you  in  possession  of  my  cottage,  and  I  trust 
you  will  find  yourself  comfortable.  What  little  arrangements 
are  necessary  I  will  confide  to  your  daughter  previous  to  my 
departure." 

"  Then  you  leave  us,  Mr.  Philip,  to  go  to  sea  ?  It  must  be 
pleasant  to  go  and  see  strange  countries — much  better  than 
staying  at  home.  When  do  you  go?" 

"  I  shall  leave  this  evening  for  Amsterdam,"  replied  Philip, 
"to  make  my  arrangements  about  a  ship,  but  I  shall  return, 
I  think,  before  I  sail." 

"  Ah  !  you  will  return.  Yes — you  have  your  money  and 
your  goods  to  see  to ;  you  must  count  your  money — we  will  take 
good  care  of  it.  Where  is  your  money,  Mr.  Vanderdecken  ?" 

"That  I  will  communicate  to  your  daughter  this  forenoon, 
before  I  leave.  In  three  weeks  at  the  furthest  you  may 
expect  me  back." 

"Father,"  said  Amine,  "you  promised  to  go  and  see  the 
child  of  the  burgomaster  ;  it  is  time  you  went." 

"Yes,  yes — by-and-by — all  in  good  time  ;  but  I  must  wait 
the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Philip  first — he  has  much  to  tell  me  before 
he  goes." 

Philip  could  not  help  smiling  when  he  remembered  what  had 
passed  when  he  first  summoned  Mynheer  Poots  to  the  cottage, 
but  the  remembrance  ended  in  sorrow  and  a  clouded  brow. 

Amine,  who  knew  what  was  passing  in  the  minds  of  both 
her  father  and  Philip,  now  brought  her  father's  hat,  and  led 
him  to  the  door  of  the  cottage ;  and  Mynheer  Poots,  very 
much  against  his  inclination,  but  never  disputing  the  will  of 
his  daughter,  was  obliged  to  depart. 

"So  soon,  Philip?"  said  Amine,  returning  to  the  room. 

"  Yes,  Amine,  immediately.  But  I  trust  to  be  back  once 
more  before  I  sail ;  if  not,  you  must  now  have  my  instructions. 
Give  me  the  keys." 

Philip  opened  the  cupboard  below  the  buffet,  and  the  doors 
of  the  iron  safe. 

"  There,  Amine,  is  my  money ;  we  need  not  count  it,  as 
your  father  would  propose.  You  see  that  I  was  right  when 
I  asserted  that  I  had  thousands  of  guilders.  At  present  they 
50 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

are  of  no  use  to  me,  as  I  have  to  learn  my  profession.  Should 
I  return  some  day,  they  may  help  me  to  own  a  ship.  I  know 
not  what  my  destiny  may  be." 

"  And  should  you  not  return  ?  "  replied  Amine  gravely. 
"  Then  they  are  yours — as  well  as  all  that  is  in  this  cottage, 
and  the  cottage  itself." 

"  You  have  relations,  have  you  not  ?  " 

"  But  one,  who  is  rich  ;  an  uncle,  who  helped  us  but  little  in 
our  distress,  and  who  has  no  children.  I  owe  him  but  little, 
and  he  wants  nothing.  There  is  but  one  being  in  this  world 
who  has  created  an  interest  in  this  heart,  Amine,  and  it  is 
you.  I  wish  you  to  look  upon  me  as  a  brother — I  shall  always 
love  you  as  a  dear  sister." 

Amine  made  no  reply.  Philip  took  some  more  money  out 
of  the  bag  which  had  been  opened,  for  the  expenses  of  his 
journey,  and  then  locking  up  the  safe  and  cupboard,  gave 
the  keys  to  Amine.  He  was  about  to  address  her,  when 
there  was  a  slight  knock  at  the  door,  and  in  entered  Father 
Seysen,  the  priest. 

"  Save  you,  my  son ;  and  you,  my  child,  whom  as  yet  I 
have  not  seen.  You  are,  I  suppose,  the  daughter  of  Mynheer 
Foots?" 

Amine  bowed  her  head. 

"  I  perceive,  Philip,  that  the  room  is  now  opened,  and  I  have 
heard  of  all  that  has  passed.  I  would  now  talk  with  thee, 
Philip,  and  must  beg  this  maiden  to  leave  us  for  awhile  alone." 
Amine  quitted  the  room,  and  the  priest,  sitting  down  on  the 
couch,  beckoned  Philip  to  his  side.  The  conversation  which 
ensued  was  too  long  to  repeat.  The  priest  first  questioned 
Philip  relative  to  his  secret,  but  on  that  point  he  could  not 
obtain  the  information  which  he  wished :  Philip  stated  as 
much  as  he  did  to  Amine,  and  no  more.  He  also  declared 
his  intention  of  going  to  sea,  and  that,  should  he  not  return, 
he  had  bequeathed  his  property — the  extent  of  which  he  did 
not  make  known — to  the  doctor  and  his  daughter.  The  priest 
then  made  inquiries  relative  to  Mynheer  Poots,  asking  Philip 
whether  he  knew  what  his  creed  was,  as  he  had  never  appeared 
at  any  church,  and  report  said  that  he  was  an  infidel.  To  this 
Philip,  as  usual,  gave  his  frank  answer,  and  intimated  that 
the  daughter,  at  least,  was  anxious  to  be  enlightened,  begging 
the  priest  to  undertake  a  task  to  which  he  himself  was  not 
51 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

adequate.  To  this  request  Father  Seysen,  who  perceived  the 
state  of  Philip's  mind  with  regard  to  Amine,  readily  consented. 
After  a  conversation  of  nearly  two  hours,  they  were  interrupted 
by  the  return  of  Mynheer  Foots,  who  darted  out  of  the  room 
the  instant  he  perceived  Father  Seysen.  Philip  called  Amine, 
and  having  begged  her  as  a  favour  to  receive  the  priest's 
visits,  the  good  old  man  blessed  them  both,  and  departed. 

"  You  did  not  give  him  any  money,  Mr.  Philip  ? "  said 
Mynheer  Poots,  when  Father  Seysen  had  left  the  room. 

"  I  did  not,"  replied  Philip  ;  "  I  wish  I  had  thought  of  it." 

"  No,  no — it  is  better  not — for  money  is  better  than  what 
he  can  give  you  ;  but  he  must  not  come  here." 

"Why  not,  father,"  replied  Amine,  "if  Mr.  Philip  wishes 
it  ?  It  is  his  own  house." 

"  Oh  yes,  if  Mr.  Philip  wishes  it ;  but  you  know  he  is  going 
away." 

"  Well,  and  suppose  he  is — why  should  not  the  father  come 
here  ?  He  shall  come  here  to  see  me." 

"See  you,  my  child  !— what  can  he  want  with  you  ?  Well, 
then,  if  he  comes,  I  will  not  give  him  one  stiver — and  then 
he'll  soon  go  away." 

Philip  had  no  opportunity  of  further  converse  with  Amine  ; 
indeed,  he  had  nothing  more  to  say.  In  an  hour  he  bade  her 
farewell  in  presence  of  her  father,  who  would  not  leave  them, 
hoping  to  obtain  from  Philip  some  communication  about  the 
money  which  he  was  to  leave  behind  him. 

In  two  days  Philip  arrived  at  Amsterdam,  and  having  made 
the  necessary  inquiries,  found  that  there  was  no  chance  of 
vessels  sailing  for  the  East  Indies  for  some  months.  The  Dutch 
East  India  Company  had  long  been  formed,  and  all  private 
trading  was  at  an  end.  The  company's  vessels  left  only  at 
what  was  supposed  to  be  the  most  favourable  season  for  round- 
ing the  Cape  of  Storms,  as  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  was 
designated  by  the  early  adventurers.  One  of  the  ships  which 
were  to  sail  with  the  next  fleet  was  the  Ter  Schilling,  a  three- 
masted  vessel,  now  laid  up  and  unrigged. 

Philip  found  out  the  captain,  and  stated  his  wishes  to  sail 
with  him,  to  learn  his  profession  as  a  seaman  ;  the  captain  was 
pleased  with  his  appearance,  and  as  Philip  not  only  agreed  to 
receive  no  wages  during  the  voyage,  but  to  pay  a  premium  as 
an  apprentice  learning  his  duty,  he  was  promised  a  berth  on 
52 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

board  as  the  second  mate,  to  mess  in  the  cabin ;  and  he  was 
told  that  he  should  be  informed  whenever  the  vessel  was  to 
sail.  Philip  having  now  done  all  that  he  could  in  obedience 
to  his  vow,  determined  to  return  to  the  cottage ;  and  once 
more  he  was  in  the  company  of  Amine. 

We  must  now  pass  over  two  months,  during  which  Mynheer 
Foots  continued  to  labour  at  his  vocation,  and  was  seldom 
within  doors,  and  our  two  young  friends  were  left  for  hours 
together.  Philip's  love  for  Amine  was  fully  equal  to  hers  for 
him.  It  was  more  than  love — it  was  a  devotion  on  both  sides, 
each  day  increasing.  Who,  indeed,  could  be  more  charming, 
more  attractive  in  all  ways  than  the  high-spirited,  yet  tender 
Amine  ?  Occasionally  the  brow  of  Philip  would  be  clouded 
when  he  reflected  upon  the  dark  prospect  before  him :  but 
Amine's  smile  would  chase  away  the  gloom,  and,  as  he  gazed 
on  her,  all  would  be  forgotten.  Amine  made  no  secret  of  her 
attachment ;  it  was  shown  in  every  word,  every  look,  and  every 
gesture.  When  Philip  would  take  her  hand,  or  encircle  her 
waist  with  his  arm,  or  even  when  he  pressed  her  coral  lips,  there 
was  no  pretence  of  coyness  on  her  part.  She  was  too  noble, 
too  confiding ;  she  felt  that  her  happiness  was  centred  in  his 
love,  and  she  lived  but  in  his  presence.  Two  months  had  thus 
passed  away,  when  Father  Seysen,  who  often  called,  and  had 
paid  much  attention  to  Amine's  instruction,  one  day  came  in  as 
Amine  was  encircled  in  Philip's  arms. 

"  My  children,"  said  he,  "I  have  watched  you  for  some  time: 
this  is  not  well.  Philip,  if  you  intend  marriage,  as  I  presume 
you  do,  still  it  is  dangerous.  I  must  join  your  hands." 

Philip  started  up. 

"  Surely  I  am  not  deceived  in  thee,  my  son,"  continued  the 
priest,  in  a  severe  tone. 

"  No,  no,  good  father ;  but  I  pray  you  leave  me  now :  to- 
morrow you  may  come,  and  all  will  be  decided.  But  I  must 
talk  with  Amine." 

The  priest  quitted  the  room,  and  Amine  and  Philip  were 
again  alone.  The  colour  in  Amine's  cheek  varied  and  her 
heart  beat,  for  she  felt  how  much  her  happiness  was  at  stake. 

"The  priest  is  right,  Amine,"  said  Philip,  sitting  down  by  her. 
"  This  cannot  last ;  would  that  I  could  ever  stay  with  you : 
how  hard  a  fate  is  mine  1     You  know  I  love  the  very  ground 
you  tread  upon,  yet  I  dare  not  ask  thee  to  \ved  to  misery." 
53 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  To  wed  with  thee  would  not  be  wedding  misery,  Philip," 
replied  Amine,  with  downcast  eyes. 

"  Twere  not  kindness  on  my  part,  Amine.  I  should 
indeed  be  selfish." 

"  I  will  speak  plainly,  Philip,"  replied  Amine.  "  You  say 
you  love  me — I  know  not  how  men  love — but  this  I  know, 
how  I  can  love.  I  feel  that  to  leave  me  now  were  indeed 
unkind  and  selfish  on  your  part ;  for,  Philip,  I — I  should 
die.  You  say  that  you  must  go  away — that  fate  demands 
it — and  your  fatal  secret.  Be  it  so  ; — but  cannot  I  go  with 
you  ?  " 

"  Go  with  me,  Amine — unto  death  ?  " 

"  Yes,  death  ;  for  what  is  death  but  a  release  ?  I  fear  not 
death,  Philip ;  I  fear  but  losing  thee.  Nay,  more  ;  is  not 
your  life  in  the  hands  of  Him  who  made  all  ?  Then  why 
so  sure  to  die  ?  You  have  hinted  to  me  that  you  are  chosen 
— selected  for  a  task  ; — if  chosen,  there  is  less  chance  of 
death  ;  for  until  the  end  be  fulfilled,  if  chosen,  you  must 
live.  I  would  I  knew  your  secret,  Philip  —  a  woman's  wit 
might  serve  you  well :  and  if  it  did  not  serve  you,  is  there 
no  comfort,  no  pleasure,  in  sharing  sorrow  as  well  as  joy  with 
one  you  say  you  dote  upon  ?  " 

"  Amine,  dearest  Amine  ;  it  is  my  love,  my  ardent  love 
alone,  which  makes  me  pause  :  for  oh,  Amine,  what  pleasure 
should  I  feel  if  we  were  this  hour  united  !  I  hardly  know 
what  to  say,  or  what  to  do.  I  could  not  withhold  my  secret 
from  you  if  you  were  my  wife,  nor  will  I  wed  you  till  you 
know  it.  Well,  Amine,  I  will  cast  my  all  upon  the  die. 
You  shall  know  this  secret,  learn  what  a  doomed  wretch  I  am, 
though  from  no  fault  of  mine,  and  then  you  yourself  shall 
decide.  But  remember,  my  oath  is  registered  in  heaven, 
anil  I  must  not  be  dissuaded  from  it ;  keep  that  in  mind, 
and  hear  my  tale, — then,  if  you  choose  to  wed  with  one 
whose  prospects  are  so  bitter,  be  it  so, — a  short-lived  happi- 
ness will  then  be  mine,  but  for  you,  Amine — 

"  At  once  the  secret,  Philip,"  cried  Amine  impatiently. 

Philip  then  entered  into  a  detail  of  what  our  readers  are 
acquainted  with.  Amine  listened  in  silence;  not  a  change 
of  feature  was  to  be  observed  in  her  countenance  during  the 
narrative.  Philip  wound  up  with  stating  the  oath  which  he 
had  taken.  "  I  have  done,"  said  Philip  mournfully. 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

**  Tis  a  strange  story,  Philip/'  replied  Amine ;  "  and  now 
hear  me  ; — but  give  me  first  that  relic, — I  wish  to  look  upon  it. 
And  can  there  be  such  virtue — I  had  nigh  said,  such  mischief 
—in  this  little  thing  ?  Strange  ;  forgive  me,  Philip, — but 
I've  still  my  doubts  upon  this  tale  of  Eblis.  You  know  I 
am  not  yet  strong  in  the  new  belief  which  you  and  the  good 
priest  have  lately  taught  me.  I  do  not  say  that  it  cannot  be 
true  ;  but  still,  one  so  unsettled  as  I  am  may  be  allowed  to 
waver.  But,  Philip,  I'll  assume  that  all  is  true.  Then,  if 
it  be  true,  without  the  oath,  you  would  be  doing  but  your 
duty ;  and  think  not  so  meanly  of  Amine  as  to  suppose  she 
would  restrain  you  from  what  is  right.  No,  Philip,  seek 
your  father,  and,  if  you  can,  and  he  requires  your  aid,  then 
save  him.  But,  Philip,  do  you  imagine  that  a  task  like  this, 
so  high,  is  to  be  accomplished  at  one  trial  ?  Oh  no  ! — if 
you  have  been  so  chosen  to  fulfil  it,  you  will  be  preserved 
through  difficulty  and  danger  until  you  have  worked  out 
your  end.  You  will  be  preserved,  and  you  will  again  and 
again  return  ; — be  comforted — consoled — be  cherished — and 
be  loved  by  Amine  as  your  wife.  And  when  it  pleases  Him 
to  call  you  from  this  world,  yojur  memory,  if  she  survive  you, 
Philip,  will  equally  be  cherished  in  her  bosom.  Philip,  you 
have  given  me  to  decide  ; — dearest  Philip,  I  am  thine." 

Amine  extended  her  arms,  and  Philip  pressed  her  to  his 
bosom.  That  evening  Philip  demanded  his  daughter  of  the 
father,  and  Mynheer  Poots,  as  soon  as  Philip  opened  the  iron 
safe  and  displayed  the  guilders,  gave  his  immediate  consent. 

Father  Seysen  called  the  next  day  and  received  his  answer  ; 
and  three  days  afterwards  the  bells  of  the  little  church  of 
Terneuse  were  ringing  a  merry  peal  for  the  union  of  Amino 
Poots  and  Philip  Vanderdecken. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IT  was  not  until  late  in  the  autumn  that  Philip  was  roused 
from  his  dream  of  love  (for  what,  alas  !  is  every  enjoyment  of 
this  life  but  a  dream  ?)  by  a  summons  from  the  captain  of  the 
vessel  with  whom  he  had  engaged  to  sail.  Strange  as  it  may 
appear,  from  the  first  day  which  put  him  in  possession  of  his 
55 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Amine,  Philip  had  no  longer  brooded  over  his  future  destiny  : 
occasionally  it  was  recalled  to  his  memory,  but  immediately 
rejected,  and  for  the  time  forgotten.  Sufficient  he  thought 
it  to  fulfil  his  engagement  when  the  time  should  come  ;  and 
although  the  hours  flew  away,  and  day  succeeded  day,  week 
week,  and  month  month,  with  the  rapidity  accompanying  a 
life  of  quiet  and  unvarying  bliss,  Philip  forgot  his  vow  in  the 
arms  of  Amine,  who  was  careful  not  to  revert  to  a  topic  which 
would  cloud  the  brow  of  her  adored  husband.  Once,  indeed, 
or  twice,  had  old  Poots  raised  the  question  of  Philip's  depar- 
ture, but  the  indignant  frown  and  the  imperious  command  of 
Amine  (who  knew  too  well  the  sordid  motives  which  actuated 
her  father,  and  who  at  such  times  looked  upon  him  with 
abhorrence)  made  him  silent,  and  the  old  man  would  spend 
his  leisure  hours  in  walking  up  and  down  the  parlour  with  his 
eyes  riveted  upon  the  buffets,  where  the  silver  tankards  now 
beamed  in  all  their  pristine  brightness. 

One  morning,  in  the  month  of  October,  there  was  a  tapping 
with  the  knuckles  at  the  cottage  door.  As  this  precaution 
implied  a  stranger,  Amine  obeyed  the  summons. 

"I  would  speak  with  Master  Philip  Vanderdecken,"  said 
the  stranger,  in  a  half-whisperihg  sort  of  voice. 

The  party  who  thus  addressed  Amine  was  a  little,  meagre 
personage,  dressed  in  the  garb  of  the  Dutch  seamen  of  his 
time,  with  a  cap  made  of  badger-skin  hanging  over  his  brow, 
His  features  were  sharp  and  diminutive,  his  face  of  a  deadly 
white,  his  lips  pale,  and  his  hair  of  a  mixture  between  red  and 
white.  He  had  very  little  show  of  beard — indeed,  it  was 
almost  difficult  to  say  what  his  age  might  be.  He  might  have 
been  a  sickly  youth  early  sinking  into  decrepitude,  or  an  old 
man,  hale  in  constitution,  yet  carrying  no  flesh.  But  the  most 
important  feature,  and  that  which  immediately  riveted  the 
attention  of  Amine,  was  the  eye  of  this  peculiar  personage — 
for  he  had  but  one ;  the  right  eyelid  was  closed,  and  the  ball 
within  had  evidently  wasted  away ;  but  his  left  eye  was,  for 
the  size  of  his  face  and  head,  of  unusual  dimensions,  very 
protuberant,  clear  and  watery,  and  most  unpleasant  to  look 
upon,  being  relieved  by  no  fringe  of  eyelash  either  above  or 
below  it.  So  remarkable  was  the  feature  that  when  you 
looked  at  the  man  you  saw  his  eye  and  looked  at  nothing 
else.  It  was  not  a  man  with  one  eye,  but  one  eye  with  a 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

man  attached  to  it :  the  body  was  but  the  tower  of  the 
lighthouse,  of  no  further  value  and  commanding  no  further 
attention  than  does  the  structure  which  holds  up  the  beacon 
to  the  venturous  mariner;  and  yet,  upon  examination,  you 
would  have  perceived  that  the  man,  although  small,  was 
neatly  made  ;  that  his  hands  were  very  different  in  texture 
and  colour  from  those  of  common  seamen ;  that  his  features 
in  general,  although  sharp,  were  regular ;  and  that  there  was 
an  air  of  superiority  even  in  the  obsequious  manner  of  the 
little  personage,  and  an  indescribable  something  about  his 
whole  appearance  which  almost  impressed  you  with  awe. 
Amine's  dark  eyes  were  for  a  moment  fixed  upon  the  visitor, 
and  she  felt  a  chill  at  her  heart  for  which  she  could  not  account, 
as  she  requested  that  he  would  walk  in. 

Philip  was  greatly  surprised  at  the  appearance  of  the 
stranger,  who,  as  soon  as  he  entered  the  room,  without 
saying  a  word,  sat  down  on  the  sofa  by  Philip  in  the  place 
which  Amine  had  just  left.  To  Philip  there  was  something 
ominous  in  this  person  taking  Amine's  seat ;  all  that  had 
passed  rushed  into  his  recollection,  and  he  felt  that  there 
was  a  summons  from  his  short  existence  of  enjoyment  and 
repose  to  a  life  of  future  activity,  danger,  and  suffering. 
What  peculiarly  struck  Philip  was  that  when  the  little  man 
sat  beside  him  a  sensation  of  sudden  cold  ran  through  his 
whole  frame.  The  colour  fled  from  Philip's  cheek,  but  he 
spoke  not.  For  a  minute  or  two  there  was  a  silence.  The 
one-eyed  visitor  looked  round  him,  and,  turning  from  the 
buffets,  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  form  of  Amine,  who  stood 
before  him  ;  at  last  the  silence  was  broken  by  a  sort  of  giggle 
on  the  part  of  the  stranger,  which  ended  in — 

"  Philip  Vanderdecken — he  !  he  ! — Philip  Vanderdecken, 
you  don't  know  me  ?  " 

"  I  do  not,"  replied  Philip,  in  a  half-angry  tone. 

The  voice  of  the  little  man  was  most  peculiar — it  was  a  sort 
of  subdued  scream,  the  notes  of  which  sounded  in  your  ear  long 
after  he  had  ceased  to  speak. 

"  I  am  Schriften,  one  of  the  pilots  of  the  Ter  Schilling," 
continued  the  man;  "and  I'm  come  —  he!  he!" — and  he 
looked  hard  at  Amine — "to  take  you  away  from  love" — and 
looking  at  the  buffets — "  he  '.  he  !  from  comfort,  and  from 
this  also,"  cried  he,  stamping  his  foot  on  the  floor  as  he  rose 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

from  the  sofa  — "  from  terra  firma — he  !  he  ! — to  a  watery 
grave  perhaps.  Pleasant ! "  continued  Schriften,  with  a  giggle; 
and  with  a  countenance  full  of  meaning  he  fixed  his  one  eye 
on  Philip's  face. 

Philip's  first  impulse  was  to  put  his  new  visitor  out  of  the 
door  ;  but  Amine,  who  read  his  thoughts,  folded  her  arms  as 
she  stood  before  the  little  man,  and  eyed  him  with  contempt, 
as  she  observed — 

"  We  all  must  meet  our  fate,  good  fellow;  and,  whether  by 
land  or  sea,  death  will  have  his  due.  If  death  stare  him  in 
the  face,  the  cheek  of  Philip  Vanderdecken  will  never  turn 
as  white  as  yours  is  now." 

"Indeed!"  replied  Schriften,  evidently  annoyed  at  this 
cool  determination  on  the  part  of  one  so  young  and  beautiful ; 
and  then  fixing  his  eye  upon  the  silver  shrine  of  the  Virgin  on 
the  mantelpiece — "  You  are  a  Catholic,  I  perceive — he  ! " 

"  I  am  a  Catholic,"  replied  Philip ;  "but  does  that  concern 
you  ?  When  does  the  vessel  sail  ?  " 

"In  a  week — he  ! — only  a  week  for  preparation — only  seven 
days  to  leave  all — short  notice  !  " 

"  More  than  sufficient,"  replied  Philip,  rising  up  from  the 
sofa.  "  You  may  tell  your  captain  that  I  shall  not  fail.  Come, 
Amine,  we  must  lose  no  time." 

"  No,  indeed,"  replied  Amine,  "  and  our  first  duty  is  hos- 
pitality :  Mynheer,  may  we  offer  you  refreshment  after  your 
walk  ?'" 

"This  day  week,"  said  Schriften,  addressing  Philip,  and 
without  making  a  reply  to  Amine.  Philip  nodded  his  head, 
the  litlle  mnn  turned  on  his  heel  and  left  the  room,  and  in  a 
short  time  was  out  of  sight. 

Amine  sank  down  on  the  sofa.  The  breaking-up  of  her  short 
hour  of  happiness  had  been  too  sudden,  too  abrupt,  and  too 
cruelly  brought  about  for  a  fondly  doting,  although  heroic 
woman.  There  was  an  evident  malignity  in  the  words  and 
manner  of  the  one-eyed  messenger,  an  appearance  as  if  he  knew 
more  than  others,  which  awed  and  confused  both  Philip  and 
herself.  Amine  wept  not,  but  she  covered  her  face  with  her 
hands,  as  Philip,  with  no  steady  pace,  walked  up  and  down  the 
small  room.  Again,  with  all  the  vividness  of  colouring,  did  the 
scenes  half  forgotten  recur  to  his  memory.  Again  did  he  pene- 
trate the  fatal  chamber — again  was  it  obscure.  The  embroidery 
58 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

lay  at  his  feet,  and  once  more  he  started  as  when  the  letter 
appeared  upon  the  floor. 

They  had  both  awakened  from  a  dream  of  present  bliss,  and 
shuddered  at  the  awful  future  which  presented  itself.  A  few 
minutes  were  sufficient  for  Philip  to  resume  his  natural  self- 
possession.  He  sat  down  by  the  side  of  his  Amine,  and  clasped 
her  in  his  arms.  They  remained  silent.  They  knew  too  well 
each  other's  thoughts;  and,  excruciating  as  was  the  effort,  they 
were  both  summoning  up  their  courage  to  bear,  and  steeling 
their  hearts  against,  the  conviction  that,  in  this  world,  they 
must  now  expect  to  be  for  a  time,  perhaps  for  ever,  separated. 

Amine  was  the  first  to  speak :  removing  her  arms,  which 
had  been  wound  round  her  husband,  she  first  put  his  hand  to 
her  heart,  as  if  to  compress  its  painful  throbbings,  and  then 
observed — 

"  Surely  that  was  no  earthly  messenger,  Philip  !  Did  you 
not  feel  chilled  to  death  when  he  sat  by  you  ?  I  did,  as  he 
came  in." 

Philip,  who  had  the  same  thought  as  Amine,  but  did  not 
wish  to  alarm  her,  answered  confusedly— 

"  Nay,  Amine,  you  fancy — that  is,  the  suddenness  of  his 
appearance  and  his  strange  conduct  have  made  you  imagine 
this ;  but  I  saw  in  him  but  a  man  who,  from  his  peculiar 
deformity,  has  become  an  envious  outcast  of  society — debarred 
from  domestic  happiness,  from  the  smiles  of  the  other  sex  ;  for 
what  woman  could  smile  upon  such  a  creature  ?  His  bile 
raised  at  so  much  beauty  in  the  arms  of  another,  he  enjoyed  a 
malignant  pleasure  in  giving  a  message  which  he  felt  would 
break  upon  those  pleasures  from  which  he  is  cut  off.  Be  assured, 
my  love,  that  it  was  nothing  more." 

"And  even  if  my  conjecture  were  correct,  what  does  it 
matter?"  replied  Amine.  "There  can  be  nothing  more — 
nothing  which  can  render  your  position  more  .awful  and  more 
desperate.  As  your  wife,  Philip,  I  feel  less  courage  than  I  did 
when  I  gave  my  willing  hand.  I  knew  not  then  what  would 
be  the  extent  of  my  loss ;  but  fear  not,  much  as  I  feel  here," 
continued  Amine,  putting  her  hand  to  her  heart — "  I  am  pre- 
pared, and  proud  that  he  who  is  selected  for  such  a  task  is  my 
husband."  Amine  paused.  "  You  cannot  surely  have  been 
mistaken,  Philip  ? " 

"  No !  Arnine,  I   have   not   been  mistaken,  either   hi  the 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

summons  or  in  my  own  courage,  or  in  my  selection  of  a 
wife,"  replied  Philip  mournfully,  as  he  embraced  her.  "  It  is 
the  will  of  Heaven." 

"  Then  may  its  will  be  done,"  replied  Amine,  rising  from 
her  seat.  "  The  first  pang  is  over.  I  feel  better  now,  Philip. 
Your  Amine  knows  her  duty." 

Philip  made  no  reply ;  when,  after  a  few  moments,  Amine 
continued — 

"  But  one  short  week,  Philip " 

" I  would  it  had  been  but  one  day,"  replied  he  ;  "it  would 
have  been  long  enough.  He  has  come  too  soon — the  one- 
eyed  monster." 

"  Nay,  not  so,  Philip.  I  thank  him  for  the  week — 'tis  but  a 
short  time  to  wean  myself  from  happiness.  I  grant  you,  that 
were  I  to  tease,  to  vex,  to  unman  you  with  my  tears,  my 
prayers,  or  my  upbraidings  (as  some  wives  would  do,  Philip), 
one  day  would  be  more  than  sufficient  for  such  a  scene  of 
weakness  on  my  part,  and  misery  on  yours.  But  no,  Philip, 
your  Amine  knows  her  duty  better.  You  must  go  like  some 
knight  of  old  to  perilous  encounter,  perhaps  to  death  ;  but 
Amine  will  ann  you,  and  show  her  love  by  closing  carefully 
each  rivet  to  protect  you  in  your  peril,  and  will  see  you  depart 
full  of  hope  and  confidence,  anticipating  your  return.  A  week 
is  not  too  long,  Philip,  when  employed  as  I  trust  I  shall  employ 
it — a  week  to  interchange  our  sentiments,  to  hear  your  voice, 
to  listen  to  your  words  (each  of  which  will  be  engraven  on  my 
heart's  memory),  to  ponder  on  them,  and  feed  my  love  with 
them  in  your  absence  and  in  my  solitude.  No,  no !  Philip ; 
I  thank  God  that  there  is  yet  a  week." 

"  And  so  do  I,  then,  Amine ;  and,  after  all,  we  knew  that 
this  must  come." 

"  Yes  ;  but  my  love  was  so  potent  that  it  banished  memory." 

"And  yet  during  our  separation  your  love  must  feed  on 
memory,  Amine." 

Amine  sighed.  Here  their  conversation  was  interrupted 
by  the  entrance  of  Mynheer  Poots,  who,  struck  with  the 
alteration  in  Amine's  radiant  features,  exclaimed,  "  Holy 
Prophet !  what  is  the  matter  now  ?  " 

"  Nothing  more  than  what  we  all  knew  before,"  replied 
Philip;  "I  am  about  to  leave  you — the  ship  will  sail  in  a 
week." 

60 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

w  Oh  !  you  will  sail  in  a  week  ?  " 

There  was  a  curious  expression  in  the  face  of  the  old  man 
as  he  endeavoured  to  suppress,  before  Amine  and  her  husband, 
the  joy  which  he  felt  at  Philip's  departure.  Gradually  he 
subdued  his  features  into  gravity,  and  said — 

"  That  is  very  bad  news,  indeed." 

No  answer  was  made  by  Amine  or  Philip,  who  quitted  the 
room  together. 

We  must  pass  over  this  week,  which  was  occupied  in  pre- 
parations for  Philip's  departure.  We  must  pass  over  the 
heroism  of  Amine,  who  controlled  her  feelings,  racked  as  she 
was  with  intense  agony  at  the  idea  of  separating  from  her 
adored  husband.  We  cannot  dwell  upon  the  conflicting  emo- 
tions in  the  breast  of  Philip,  who  left  competence,  happiness, 
and  love,  to  encounter  danger,  privation,  and  death.  Now, 
at  one  time  he  would  almost  resolve  to  remain,  and  then  at 
others,  as  he  took  the  relic  from  his  bosom  and  remembered 
his  vow  registered  upon  it,  he  was  nearly  as  anxious  to  depart. 
Amine,  too,  as  she  fell  asleep  in  her  husband's  arms,  would 
count  the  few  hours  left  them  ;  or  she  would  shudder,  as  she 
lay  awake  and  the  wind  howled,  at  the  prospect  of  what  Philip 
would  have  to  encounter.  It  was  a  long  week  to  both  of 
them,  and,  although  they  thought  that  time  flew  fast,  it  was 
almost  a  relief  when  the  morning  came  that  was  to  separate 
them  ;  for  to  their  feelings,  which,  from  regard  to  each  other, 
had  been  pent  up  and  controlled,  they  could  then  give  vent ; 
their  surcharged  bosoms  could  be  relieved  ;  certainty  had 
driven  away  suspense,  and  hope  was  still  left  to  cheer  them 
and  brighten  up  the  dark  horizon  of  the  future. 

"  Philip,"  said  Amine,  as  they  sat  together  with  their  hands 
entwined.  "I  shall  not  feel  so  much  when  you  are  gone.  I 
do  not  forget  that  all  this  was  told  me  before  we  were  wed, 
and  that  for  my  love  I  took  the  hazard.  My  fond  heart  often 
tells  me  that  you  will  return ;  but  it  may  deceive  me — return 
you  may,  but  not  in  life.  In  this  room  I  shall  await  you  ;  on 
this  sofa,  removed  to  its  former  station,  I  shall  sit ;  and  if  you 
cannot  appear  to  me  alive,  oh,  refuse  me  not,  if  it  be  possible, 
to  appear  to  me  when  dead.  I  shall  fear  no  storm,  no  bursting 
open  of  the  window.  Oh  no !  I  shall  hail  the  presence  even 
of  your  spirit.  Once  nrre ;  let  me  but  see  you — let  me  be 
assured  that  you  are  dead — and  then  I  shall  know  that  J  have 
61 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

no  more  to  live  for  in  this  world,  and  shall  hasten  to  join  you 
in  a  world  of  bliss.  Promise  me,  Philip." 

"  I  promise  all  you  ask,  provided  Heaven  will  so  permit ; 
but,  Amine,"  and  Philip's  lips  trembled,  "  I  cannot — merciful 
God  !  I  am  indeed  tried.  Amine,  I  can  stay  no  longer." 

Amine's  dark  eyes  were  fixed  upon  her  husband — she  could 
not  speak — her  features  were  convulsed — nature  could  no 
longer  hold  up  against  her  excess  of  feeling — she  fell  into  his 
arms,  and  lay  motionless.  Philip,  about  to  impress  a  last  kiss 
upon  her  pale  lips,  perceived  that  she  had  fainted. 

"She  feels  not  now,"  said  he,  as  he  laid  her  upon  the  sofa ; 
"  it  is  better  that  it  should  be  so — too  soon  will  she  awake  to 
misery." 

Summoning  to  the  assistance  of  his  daughter  Mynheer  Poots, 
who  was  in  the  adjoining  room,  Philip  caught  up  his  hat,  im- 
printed one  more  fervent  kiss  upon  her  forehead,  burst  from  the 
house,  and  was  out  of  sight  long  before  Amine  had  recovered 
from  her  swoon. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BEFORE  we  follow  Philip  Vanderdecken  in  his  venturous 
career,  it  will  be  necessary  to  refresh  the  memory  of  our 
readers  by  a  succinct  recapitulation  of  the  circumstances  that 
had  directed  the  enterprise  of  the  Dutch  towards  the  country 
of  the  East,  which  was  now  proving  to  them  a  source  of 
wealth,  which  they  considered  as  inexhaustible. 

Let  us  begin  at  the  beginning.  Charles  the  Fifth,  after 
having  possessed  the  major  part  of  Europe,  retired  from  the 
world,  for  reasons  best  known  to  himself,  and  divided  his 
kingdoms  between  Ferdinand  and  Philip.  To  Ferdinand  he 
gave  Austria  and  its  dependencies ;  to  Philip,  Spain ;  but  to 
make  the  division  more  equal  and  palatable  to  the  latter,  he 
threw  the  Low  Countries,  with  the  few  millions  vegetating 
upon  them,  into  the  bargain.  Having  thus  disposed  of  his 
fellow-mortals  much  to  his  own  satisfaction,  he  went  into  a 
convent,  reserving  for  himself  a  small  income,  twelve  men, 
and  a  pony.  Whether  he  afterwards  repented  his  hobby,  or 
mounted  his  pony,  is  not  recorded  ;  but  this  is  certain — that 
in  two  years  he  died. 

62 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Philip  thought  (as  many  have  thought  before  and  since) 
that  he  had  a  right  to  do  what  he  pleased  with  his  own. 
He  therefore  took  away  from  the  Hollanders  most  of  their 
liberties :  to  make  amends,  however,  he  gave  them  the  In- 
quisition ;  but  the  Dutch  grumbled,  and  Philip,  to  stop  their 
grumbling,  burnt  a  few  of  them.  Upon  which  the  Dutch, 
who  are  aquatic  in  their  propensities,  protested  against  a 
religion  which  was  much  too  warm  for  their  constitutions. 
In  short,  heresy  made  great  progress ;  and  the  Duke  of  Alva 
was  despatched  with  a  large  army,  to  prove  to  the  Hollanders 
that  the  Inquisition  was  the  very  best  of  all  possible  arrange- 
ments, and  that  it  was  infinitely  better  that  a  man  should  be 
burnt  for  half-an-hour  in  this  world  than  for  eternity  in  the 
next. 

This  slight  difference  of  opinion  was  the  occasion  of  a  war, 
which  lasted  about  eight  years,  and  which,  after  having  saved 
some  hundreds  of  thousands  the  trouble  of  dving  in  their 
beds,  at  length  ended  in  the  Seven  United  Provinces  being 
declared  independent.  Now  we  must  go  back  again. 

For  a  century  after  Vasco  de  Gama  had  discovered  the 
passage  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the  Portuguese  were 
interfered  with  by  other  nations.  At  last  the  adventurous 
spirit  of  the  English  nation  was  roused.  The  passage  to 
India  by  the  Cape  had  been  claimed  by  the  Portuguese  as 
their  sole  right,  and  they  defended  it  bv  force.  For  a  long 
time  no  private  •  company  ventured  to  oppose  them,  and  the 
trade  was  not  of  that  apparent  value  to  induce  any  govern- 
ment to  embark  in  a  war  upon  the  question.  The  English 
adventurers,  therefore,  turned  their  attention  to  the  discovery 
of  a  north-west  passage  to  India,  with  which  the  Portuguese 
could  have  no  right  to  interfere,  and  in  vain  attempts  to  dis- 
cover that  passage,  the  best  part  of  the  fifteenth  century  was 
employed.  At  last  they  abandoned  their  endeavours,  and 
resolved  no  longer  to  be  deterred  by  the  Portuguese  pre- 
tensions. 

After  one  or  two  unsuccessful  expeditions,  an  armament 
was  fitted  out  and  put  under  the  orders  of  Drake.  This 
courageous  and  successful  navigator  accomplished  more  than 
the  most  sanguine  had  anticipated.  He  returned  to  England 
in  the  month  of  May  1580,  after  a  voyage  which  occupied 
him  nearly  three  years,  bringing  home  with  him  great  riches, 
63 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

and  having  made  most  favourable  arrangements  with  the 
king  of  the  Molucca  Islands. 

His  success  was  followed  up  by  Cavendish  and  others  in 
1600.  The  English  East  India  Company,  in  the  meanwhile, 
received  their  first  charter  from  the  government,  and  had 
now  been,  with  various  success,  carrying  on  a  trade  for  up- 
wards of  fifty  years. 

During  the  time  that  the  Dutch  were  vassals  to  the  crown 
of  Spain,  it  was  their  custom  to  repair  to  Lisbon  for  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  East,  and  afterwards  to  distribute  them  through 
Europe ;  but  when  they  quarrelled  with  Philip,  they  were  no 
longer  admitted  as  retailers  of  his  Indian  produce  :  the  conse- 
quence was  that,  while  asserting  and  fighting  for  their  inde- 
pendence, they  had  also  fitted  out  expeditions  to  India. 
They  were  successful;  and  in  1602  the  various  speculators 
were,  by  the  government,  formed  into  a  company,  upon  the 
same  principles  and  arrangement  as  those  which  had  been 
chartered  in  England. 

At  the  time,  therefore,  to  which  we  are  reverting,  the 
English  and  Dutch  had  been  trading  in  the  Indian  seas  for 
more  than  fifty  years ;  and  the  Portuguese  had  lost  nearly  all 
their  power,  from  the  alliances  and  friendships  which  their 
rivals  had  formed  with  the  potentates  of  the  East,  who  had 
suffered  from  the  Portuguese  avarice  and  cruelty. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  sum  of  obligation  which  the 
Dutch  owed  to  the  English  for  the  assistance  they  received 
from  them  during  their  struggle  for  independence,  it  does  not 
appear  that  their  gratitude  extended  beyond  the  Cape ;  for, 
on  the  other  side  of  it,  the  Portuguese,  English,  and  Dutch 
fought,  and  captured  each  other's  vessels  without  ceremony ; 
and  there  was  no  law  but  that  of  main  force.  The  mother 
countries  were  occasionally  called  upon  to  interfere  ;  but  the 
interference  up  to  the  above  time  had  produced  nothing  more 
than  a  paper  war ;  it  being  very  evident  that  all  parties  were 
in  the  wrong. 

In  l6.r>0  Cromwell  usurped  the  throne  of  England,  and  the 
year  afterwards,  having,  among  other  points,  vainly  demanded 
of  the  Dutch  satisfaction  for  the  murder  of  his  regicide  ambas- 
sador which  took  place  in  this  year,  and  some  compensation  for 
the  cruelties  exercised  on  the  English  at  Amboyne  some  thirty 
years  before,  he  declared  war  with  Holland.  To  prove  that  he 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

was  in  earnest,  he  seized  more  than  two  hundred  Dutch 
vessels,  and  the  Dutch  then  (very  unwillingly)  prepared  for 
war.  Blake  and  Van  Tromp  met,  and  the  naval  combats  were 
most  obstinate.  In  the  "  History  of  England  "  the  victory  is 
almost  invariably  given  to  the  English,  but  in  that  of  Holland 
to  the  Dutch.  By  all  accounts,  these  engagements  were  so 
obstinate  that  in  each  case  they  were  both  well  beaten.  How- 
ever, in  1654  peace  was  signed  ;  the  Dutchman  promising  "  to 
take  his  hat  off"  whenever  he  should  meet  an  Englishman  on 
the  high  seas — a  mere  act  of  politeness,  which  Mynheer  did 
not  object  to,  as  it  cost  nothing.  And  now,  having  detailed 
the  state  of  things  up  to  the  time  of  Philip's  embarkation, 
we  shall  proceed  with  our  story. 

As  soon  as  Philip  was  clear  of  his  own  threshold,  he  hastened 
away  as  though  he  were  attempting  to  escape  from  his  own 
painful  thoughts.  In  two  days  he  arrived  at  Amsterdam, 
where  his  first  object  was  to  procure  a  small,  but  strong  steel 
chain,  to  replace  the  ribbon  by  which  the  relic  had  hitherto 
been  secured  round  his  neck.  Having  done  this,  he  hastened 
to  embark  with  his  effects  on  board  of  the  Tcr  Schilling. 
Philip  had  not  forgotten  to  bring  with  him  the  money  which 
he  had  agreed  to  pay  the  captain,  in  consideration  of  being 
received  on  board  as  an  apprentice  rather  than  a  sailor.  He 
had  also  furnished  himself  with  a  further  sum  for  his  own 
exigencies.  It  was  late  in  the  evening  when  he  arrived  on 
board  of  the  Tcr  Schilling,  which  lay  at  single  anchor,  sur- 
rounded by  the  other  vessels  composing  the  Indian  fleet. 
The  captain,  wliose  name  was  K loots,  received  him  with 
kindness,  showed  him  his  berth,  and  then  went  below  in 
the  hold  to  decide  a  question  relative  to  the  cargo,  leaving 
Philip  on  deck  to  his  own  reflections. 

"And  this  then,"  thought  Philip,  as  he  leaned  against  the 
taffrail  and  looked  forward — "  this,  then,  is  the  vessel  in  which 
my  first  attempt  is  to  be  made.  First  and — perhaps  last. 
How  little  do  those  with  whom  I  am  about  to  sail  imagine 
the  purport  of  my  embarkation  !  How  different  are  my  views 
from  those  of  others  !  Do  I  seek  a  fortune  ?  No  !  Is  it  to 
satisfy  curiosity  and  a  truant  spirit  ?  No  !  I  seek  communion 
with  the  dead.  Can  I  meet  the  dead  without  danger  to 
myself  and  those  who  sail  with  me  ?  I  should  think  not.  for 
I  cannot  join  it  but  in  death.  Did  they  surmise  my  wishes 
65  E 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

and  intentions,  would  they  permit  me  to  remain  one  hour  on 
board  ?  Superstitious  as  seamen  are  said  to  be,  they  might 
find  a  good  excuse,  if  they  knew  my  mission,  not  only  for 
their  superstition,  but  for  ridding  themselves  of  one  on  such 
an  awful  errand.  Awful  indeed !  and  how  to  be  accom- 
plished ?  Heaven  alone,  with  perseverance  on  my  part,  can 
solve  the  mystery."  And  Philip's  thoughts  reverted  to  his 
Amine.  He  folded  his  arms,  and  entranced  in  meditation, 
with  his  eyes  raised  to  the  firmament,  he  appeared  to  watch 
the  flying  scud. 

"Had  you  not  better  go  below?"  said  a  mild  voice,  which 
made  Philip  start  from  his  reverie. 

It  was  that  of  the  first  mate,  whose  name  was  Hillebrant,  a 
short,  well-set  man  of  about  thirty  years  of  age.  His  hair  was 
flaxen,  and  fell  in  long  flakes  upon  his  shoulders,  his  com- 
plexion fair,  and  his  eyes  of  a  soft  blue ;  although  there  was 
little  of  the  sailor  in  his  appearance,  few  knew  or  did  their 
duty  better. 

"  I  thank  you,"  replied  Philip ;  "  I  had,  indeed,  forgotten 
myself,  and  where  I  was :  my  thoughts  were  far  away.  Good 
night,  and  many  thanks." 

The  Ter  Schilling,  like  most  of  the  vessels  of  that  period, 
was  very  different  in  her  build  and  fitting  from  those  of  the 
present  day.  She  was  ship-rigged,  and  of  about  four  hundred 
tons  burden.  Her  bottom  was  nearly  flat,  and  her  sides  fell 
in  (as  she  rose  above  the  water),  so  that  her  upper  decks  were 
not  half  the  width  of  the  hold. 

All  the  vessels  employed  bv  the  Company  being  armed,  she 
had  her  main  deck  clear  of  goods,and  carried  six  nine-pounders 
on  each  broadside  ;  her  ports  were  small  and  oval.  There  was 
a  great  spring  in  all  her  decks — that  is  to  say,  she  ran  with  a 
curve  forward  and  aft.  On  her  forecastle  another  small  deck 
ran  from  the  knight-heads,  which  was  called  the  top-gallant 
forecastle.  Her  quarter-deck  was  broken  with  a  poop,  which 
rose  high  out  of  the  water.  The  bowsprit  staved  very  much, 
and  was  to  appearance  almost  as  a  fourth  mast :  the  more  so, 
as  she  carried  a  square  spritsail  and  sprit- topsail.  On  her 
quarter-deck  and  poop-bulwarks  were  fixed  in  sockets  imple- 
ments of  warfare  now  long  in  disuse,  but  what  were  then 
known  by  the  names  of  cohorns  and  patteraroes ;  they  turned 
round  on  a  swivel,  and  were  pointed  by  an  iron  handle  fixed  to 
66 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  breech.  The  sail  abaft  the  mizen-mast  (corresponding  to 
the  driver  or  spanker  of  the  present  day)  was  fixed  upon  a 
lateen-yard.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  (after  this  descrip- 
tion) that  the  dangers  of  a  long  voyage  were  not  a  little  in- 
creased by  the  peculiar  structure  of  the  vessels,  which  (although 
with  such  top  hamper,  and  so  much  wood  above  water,  they 
could  make  good  way  before  a  favourable  breeze)  could  hold 
no  wind,  and  had  but  little  chance  if  caught  upon  a  lee-shore. 

The  crew  of  the  Ter  Schilling  were  composed  of  the  captain, 
two  mates,  two  pilots,  and  forty-five  men.  The  supercargo 
had  not  yet  come  on  board.  The  cabin  (under  the  poop)  was 
appropriated  to  the  supercargo;  but  the  main-deck  cabin  to  the 
captain  and  mates,  who  composed  the  whole  of  the  cabin  mess. 

When  Philip  awoke  the  next  morning,  he  found  that  the 
topsails  were  hoisted,  and  the  anchor  short-stay  apeak.  Some 
of  the  other  vessels  of  the  fleet  were  under  weigh  and  stand- 
ing out.  The  weather  was  fine  and  the  water  smooth,  and 
the  bustle  and  novelty  of  the  scene  were  cheering  to  his 
spirits.  The  captain,  Mynheer  Kloots,  was  standing  on  the 
poop  with  a  small  telescope  made  of  pasteboard  to  his  eve, 
anxiously  looking  towards  the  town.  Mynheer  Kloots,  as 
usual,  had  his  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  the  smoke  which  he 
puffed  from  it  for  a  time  obscured  the  lenses  of  his  telescope. 
Philip  went  up  the  poop  ladder  and  saluted  him. 

Mynheer  Kloots  was  a  person  of  no  moderate  dimensions, 
and  the  quantity  of  garments  which  he  wore  added  no  little  to 
his  apparent  bulk.  The  outer  garments  exposed  to  view  were, 
a  rough  fox-skin  cap  upon  his  head,  from  under  which  appeared 
the  edge  of  a  red  worsted  nightcap ;  a  red  plush  waistcoat, 
with  large  metal  buttons  ;  a  jacket  of  green  cloth,  over  which 
he  wore  another  of  larger  dimensions  of  coarse  blue  cloth, 
which  came  down  as  low  as  what  would  be  called  a  spencer. 
Below  he  had  black  plush  breeches,  light  blue  worsted  stock- 
ings, shoes,  and  broad  silver  buckles  ;  round  his  waist  was 
girded,  with  a  broad  belt,  a  canvas  apron,  which  descended  in 
thick  folds  nearly  to  his  knee.  In  his  belt  was  a  large  broad- 
bladed  knife  in  a  sheath  of  shark's  skin.  Such  was  the  attire 
of  Mynheer  Kloots,  captain  of  the  Ter  Schilling. 

He  was  as  tall  as  he  was  corpulent.  His  face  was  oval,  and 
his  features  small  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  his  frame.  His 
grizzly  hair  fluttered  in  the  breeze,  and  his  nose  (although 
67 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

quite  straight)  was,  at  the  tip,  fiery  red  from  frequent  applica- 
tion to  his  bottle  of  schnapps,  and  the  heat  of  a  small  pipe 
which  seldom  left  his  lips,  except  for  liim  to  give  an  order,  or 
for  it  to  be  replenished. 

"  Good  morning,  my  son,"  said  the  captain,  taking  his  pipe 
out  of  his  mouth  for  a  moment.  "  We  are  detained  by  the 
supercargo,  who  appears  not  over- willing  to  come  on  board  ; 
the  boat  has  been  on  shore  this  hour  waiting  for  him,  and  we 
shall  be  last  of  the  fleet  under  weigh.  I  wish  the  Company 
would  let  us  sail  without  these  gentlemen,  who  are  (in  my 
opinion)  a  great  hindrance  to  business ;  but  they  think  other- 
wise on  shore." 

"  What  is  their  duty  on  board  ?  "  replied  Philip. 

"  Their  duty  is  to  look  after  the  cargo  and  the  traffic,  and  if 
they  kept  to  that,  it  would  not  be  so  bad  ;  but  they  interfere 
with  everything  else  and  everybody,  studying  little  except  their 
own  comforts ;  in  fact,  they  play  the  king  on  board,  knowing 
that  we  dare  not  affront  them,  as  a  word  from  them  would 
prejudice  the  vessel  when  again  to  be  chartered.  The  Company 
insist  upon  their  being  received  with  all  honours.  We  salute 
them  with  five  guns  on  their  arrival  on  board." 

"  Do  you  know  anything  of  this  one  whom  you  expect  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  but  from  report.  A  brother  captain  of  mine 
(with  whom  he  has  sailed)  told  me  that  he  is  most  fearful  of 
the  dangers  of  the  sea,  and  much  taken  up  with  his  own 
importance." 

"  I  wish  he  would  come,"  replied  Philip ;  "  I  am  most 
anxious  that  we  should  sail." 

"  You  must  be  of  a  wandering  disposition,  my  son  :  I  hear 
that  you  leave  a  comfortable  home,  and  a  pretty  wife  to 
boot" 

"  I  am  most  anxious  to  see  the  world,"  replied  Philip ; 
"and  I  must  learn  to  sail  a  ship  before  I  purchase  one,  and 
try  to  make  the  fortune  that  I  covet."  (Alas !  how  different 
from  my  real  wishes,  thought  Philip,  as  he  made  this  reply.) 

"  Fortunes  are  made,  and  fortunes  are  swallowed  up  too,  by 
the  ocean,"  replied  the  captain.  "  If  I  could  turn  this  good 
ship  into  a  good  house,  with  plenty  of  guilders  to  keep  the 
house  warm,  you  would  not  find  me  standing  on  this  poop.  I 
have  doubled  the  Cape  twice,  which  is  often  enough  for  any 
man ;  the  third  time  may  not  be  so  lucky." 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Is  it  so  dangerous,  then  ?  "  said  Philip. 

"  As  dangerous  as  tides  and  currents,  rocks  and  sand-banks, 
hard  gales  and  heavy  seas,  can  make  it — no  more  !  Even 
when  you  anchor  in  the  bay,  on  this  side  of  the  Cape,  you 
ride  in  fear  and  trembling,  for  you  may  be  blown  away  from 
your  anchor  to  sea,  or  be  driven  on  shore  among  the  savages, 
before  the  men  can  well  put  on  their  clothing.  But  when 
once  you're  well  on  the  other  side  of  the  Cape,  then  the  water 
dances  to  the  beams  of  the  sun  as  if  it  were  merry,  and  you 
may  sail  for  weeks  with  a  cloudless  sky  and  a  following  breeze, 
without  starting  tack  or  sheet,  or  having  to  take  your  pipe  out 
of  your  mouth." 

"  What  ports  shall  we  go  into,  Mynheer  ?  " 

"  Of  that  I  can  say  but  little.  Gambroon,  in  the  Gulf  of 
Persia,  will  probably  be  the  first  rendezvous  of  the  whole 
fleet.  Then  we  shall  separate :  some  will  sail  direct  for 
Bantam,  in  the  island  of  Java ;  others  will  have  orders  to 
trade  down  the  Straits  for  camphor,  gum,  benzoin,  and  wax ; 
they  have  also  gold  and  the  teeth  of  the  elephant  to  barter 
with  us :  there  (should  we  be  sent  thither)  you  must  be  care- 
ful with  the  natives,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken.  They  are 
fierce  and  treacherous,  and  their  curved  knives  (or  creeses, 
as  they  call  them),  are  sharp  and  deadly  poisoned.  I  have 
had  hard  fighting  in  those  Straits,  both  with  Portuguese  and 
English." 

"  But  we  are  all  at  peace  now." 

"True,  my  son;  but  when  round  the  Cape,  we  must  not 
trust  to  papers  signed  at  home ;  and  the  English  press  us 
hard,  and  tread  upon  our  heels  wherever  we  go.  They  must 
be  checked ;  and  I  suspect  our  fleet  is  so  large  and  well- 
appointed  in  expectation  of  hostilities." 

"  How  long  do  you  expect  your  voyage  may  occupy  us  ?  " 

"  That's  as  may  be  :  but  I  should  say  about  two  years  ; — 
nay,  if  not  detained  by  the  factors,  as  I  expect  we  shall  be, 
for  some  hostile  service,  it  may  be  less." 

"  Two  years,"  thought  Philip,  "  two  years  from  Amine  ! " 
and  he  sighed  deeply,  for  he  felt  that  their  separation  might 
be  for  ever. 

"  Nay,  my  son,  two  years  is  not  so  long,"  said  Mynheer 
Kloots,  who  observed  the  passing  cloud  on  Philips  brow.  "I 
was  once  five  year  away,  and  was  unfortunate,  for  I  brought 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

home  nothing,  not  even  my  ship.  I  was  sent  to  Chittagong, 
on  the  east  side  of  the  great  Bay  of  Bengala,  and  lay  for  three 
months  in  the  river.  The  chiefs  of  the  country  would  detain 
me  by  force  ;  they  would  not  barter  for  my  cargo,  or  permit 
me  to  seek  another  market  My  powder  had  been  landed, 
and  I  could  make  no  resistance.  The  worms  ate  through  the 
bottom  of  my  vessel,  and  she  sank  at  her  anchors.  They  knew 
it  would  take  place,  and  that  then  they  would  have  my  cargo 
at  their  own  price.  Another  vessel  brought  us  home.  Had  I 
not  been  so  treacherously  served,  I  should  have  had  no  need 
to  sail  this  time ;  and  now  my  gains  are  small,  the  Company 
forbidding  all  private  trading.  But  here  he  comes  at  last ; 
they  have  hoisted  the  ensign  on  the  staff  in  the  boat ;  there — 
they  have  shoved  off.  Mynheer  Hillebrant,  see  the  gunners 
ready  with  their  linstocks  to  salvo  the  supercargo." 

"  What  duty  do  you  wish  me  to  perform  ?  "  observed  Philip. 
"  In  what  can  I  be  useful  ?  " 

"  At  present  you  can  be  of  little  use,  except  in  those  heavy 
gales  in  which  every  pair  of  hands  is  valuable.  You  must  look 
and  learn  for  some  time  yet ;  but  you  can  make  a  fair  copy  of 
the  journal  kept  for  the  inspection  of  the  Company,  and  may 
assist  me  in  various  ways,  as  soon  as  the  unpleasant  nausea, 
felt  by  those  who  first  embark,  has  subsided.  As  a  remedy,  I 
should  propose  that  you  gird  a  handkerchief  tight  round  your 
body  so  as  to  compress  the  stomach,  and  make  frequent 
application  to  my  bottle  of  schnapps,  which  you  will  find 
always  at  your  service.  But  now  to  receive  the  factor  of  the 
most  puissant  Company.  Mynheer  Hillebrant,  let  them  dis- 
charge the  cannon." 

The  guns  were  fired,  and  soon  after  the  smoke  had  cleared 
away,  the  boat,  with  its  long  ensign  trailing  on  the  water, 
was  pulled  alongside.  Philip  watched  the  appearance  of  the 
supercargo ;  but  he  remained  in  the  boat  until  several  of  the 
boxes  with  the  initials  and  arms  of  the  Company  were  first 
handed  on  the  deck ;  at  last  the  supercargo  appeared. 

He  was  a  small,  spare,  wizen-faced  man,  with  a  three- 
cornered  cocked  hat,  bound  with  broad  gold  lace,  upon  his 
head,  under  which  appeared  a  full-bottomed  flowing  wig,  the 
curls  of  which  descended  low  upon  his  shoulders.  His  coat 
•was  of  crimson  velvet,  with  broad  flaps  ;  his  waistcoat  of  white 
Silk,  worked  in  coloured  flowers,  and  descending  half-way 
70 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

down  to  his  knees.  His  breeches  were  of  black  satin,  and 
his  legs  were  covered  with  white  silk  stockings.  Add  to  this, 
gold  buckles  at  his  knees  and  in  his  shoes,  lace  ruffles  to  his 
wrists,  and  a  silver-mounted  cane  in  his  hand,  and  the  reader 
has  the  entire  dress  of  Mynheer  Jacob  Jaiiz  Von  Stroom,  the 
supercargo  of  the  Honourable  Company,  appointed  to  the 
good  ship  Tcr  Schilling. 

As  he  looked  round  him,  surrounded  at  a  respectful  dis- 
tance by  the  captain,  officers,  and  men  of  the  ship,  with  their 
caps  in  their  hands,  the  reader  might  be  reminded  of  the 
picture  of  the  "  Monkey  who  had  seen  the  world  "  surrounded 
by  his  tribe.  There  was  not,  however,  the  least  inclination 
on  the  part  of  the  seamen  to  laugh,  even  at  his  flowing,  full- 
bottomed  wig  :  respect  was  at  that  period  paid  to  dress  ;  and 
although  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  could  not  be  mistaken  for  a 
sailor,  he  was  known  to  be  the  supercargo  of  the  Company, 
and  a  very  great  man.  He  therefore  received  all  the  respect 
due  to  so  important  a  personage. 

Mynheer  Von  Stroom  did  not,  however,  appear  very  anxious 
to  remain  on  deck.  He  requested  to  be  shown  into  his  cabin, 
and  followed  the  captain  aft,  picking  his  way  among  the  coils 
of  ropes  with  which  his  path  was  encumbered.  The  door  was 
opened,  and  the  supercargo  disappeared.  The  ship  was  then 
got  under  weigh,  the  men  had  left  the  windlass,  the  sails  had 
been  trimmed,  and  they  were  securing  the  anchor  on  board, 
when  the  bell  of  the  poop-cabin  (appropriated  to  the  super- 
cargo) was  pulled  with  great  violence. 

"  What  can  that  be  ?  "  said  Mynheer  Kloots  (who  was  for- 
ward), taking  the  pipe  out  of  his  mouth.  "  Mynheer  Vander- 
decken,  will  you  see  what  is  the  matter  ?  " 

Philip  went  aft,  as  the  pealing  of  the  bell  continued,  and 
opening  the  cabin  door,  discovered  the  supercargo  perched 
upon  the  table  and  pulling  the  bell-rope,  which  hung  over  its 
centre,  with  every  mark  of  fear  in  his  countenance.  His  wig 
was  off,  and  his  bare  skull  gave  him  an  appearance  peculiarly 
ridiculous. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  sir  ?  "  inquired  Philip. 

"  Matter ! "   spluttered   Mynheer  Von  Stroom  ;    "  call  the 

troops    in   with    their   firelocks.     Quick,    sir.     Am    I    to    be 

murdered,  torn  to  pieces,  and  devoured  ?     For  mercy's  sake, 

sir,  don't  stare,  but  do  something — look,  it's  coming  to  the 

71 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

table  !  Oh  dear !  Oh  dear  !  "  continued  the  supercargo,  evi- 
dently terrified  out  of  his  wits. 

Philip,  whose  eyes  had  been  fixed  on  Mynheer  Von  Stroom, 
turned  them  in  the  direction  pointed  out,  and  much  to  his 
astonishment  perceived  a  small  bear  upon  the  deck,  who  was 
amusing  himself  with  the  supercargo's  flowing  wig,  which  he 
held  in  his  paws,  tossing  it  about,  and  now  and  then  burying 
his  muzzle  in  it.  The  unexpected  sight  of  the  animal  was  at 
first  a  shock  to  Philip ;  but  a  moment's  consideration  assured 
him  that  the  animal  must  be  harmless,  or  it  never  would  have 
been  permitted  to  remain  loose  in  the  vessel. 

Nevertheless,  Philip  had  no  wish  to  approach  the  animal, 
whose  disposition  he  was  unacquainted  with,  when  the  appear- 
ance of  Mynheer  Kloots  put  an  end  to  his  difficulty. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Mynheer  ?  "  said  the  captain.  "  Oh  ! 
I  see  ;  it  is  Johannes,"  continued  the  captain,  going  up  to 
the  bear,  and  saluting  him  with  a  kick,  as  he  recovered  the 
supercargo's  wig.  "  Out  of  the  cabin,  Johannes  !  Out,  sir  !  " 
cried  Mynheer  Kloots,  kicking  the  breech  of  the  bear  till 
the  animal  had  escaped  through  the  door.  "  Mynheer  Von 
Stroom,  I  am  very  sorry — here  is  your  wig.  Shut  the  door, 
Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  or  the  beast  may  come  back,  for  he 
is  very  fond  of  me." 

As  the  door  was  shut  between  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  and 
the  object  of  his  terror,  the  little  man  slid  off  the  table  to 
the  high-backed  chair  near  it,  shook  out  the  damaged  curls 
of  his  wig,  and  replaced  it  on  his  head  ;  pulled  out  his  ruffles, 
and  assuming  an  air  of  magisterial  importance,  struck  his  cane 
on  the  deck,  and  then  spoke. 

"  Mynheer  Kloots,  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  disrespect 
to  the  supercargo  of  the  puissant  Company  ?  " 

"  God  in  heaven  1  no  disrespect,  Mynheer ; — the  animal  is 
a  bear,  as  you  see  ;  he  is  very  tame,  even  with  strangers.  He 
belongs  to  me.  I  have  had  him  since  he  was  three  months 
old.  It  was  all  a  mistake.  The  mate,  Mynheer  Hillebrant, 
put  him  in  the  cabin,  that  he  might  be  out  of  the  way 
while  the  duty  was  carrying  on,  and  he  quite  forgot  that 
he  was  here.  I  am  very  sorry,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  ;  but 
he  will  not  come  here  again,  unless  you  wish  to  play  with 
him." 

"  Play  with  him  !  I !  supercargo  to  the  Company,  play  with 
72 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

a  bear  J    Mynheer  Kloots,  the  animal  must  be  thrown  oven- 
board  immediately." 

"  Nay,  nay ;  I  cannot  throw  overboard  an  animal  that  I 
hold  in  much  affection,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  ;  but  he  shall 
not  trouble  you." 

te  Then,  Captain  Kloots,  you  will  have  to  deal  with  the  Com- 
pany, to  whom  1  shall  represent  the  affair.  Your  charter  will 
be  cancelled,  and  your  freight-money  will  be  forfeited." 

Kloots  was,  like  most  Dutchmen,  not  a  little  obstinate,  and 
this  imperative  behaviour  on  the  part  of  the  supercargo  raised 
his  bile.  "  There  is  nothing  in  the  charter  that  prevents  my 
having  an  animal  on  board,"  replied  Kloots. 

"  By  the  regulations  of  the  Company,"  replied  Von  Stroom, 
falling  back  in  his  chair  with  an  important  air,  and  crossing  his 
thin  legs,  "you  are  required  to  receive  on  board  strange  and 
curious  animals,  sent  home  by  the  governors  and  factors  to  be 
presented  to  crowned  heads- — such  as  lions,  tigers,  elephants, 
and  other  productions  of  the  East ;  but  in  no  instance  is  it 
permitted  to  the  commanders  of  chartered  ships  to  receive  on 
board,  on  their  own  account,  animals  of  any  description,  which 
must  be  considered  under  the  offence  of  private  trading." 

"My  bear  is  not  for  sale,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom." 

"It  must  immediately  be  sent  out  of  the  ship,  Mynheer 
Kloots.  I  order  you  to  send  it  away — on  your  peril  to  refuse." 

"Then  we  will  drop  the  anchor  again,  Mynheer  Von 
Stroom,  and  send  on  shore  to  headquarters  to  decide  the 
point.  If  the  Company  insists  that  the  brute  be  put  on  shore, 
be  it  so ;  but  recollect,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,  we  shall  lose 
the  protection  of  the  fleet,  and  have  to  sail  alone.  Shall  I 
drop  the  anchor,  Mynheer  ?  " 

This  observation  softened  down  the  pertinacity  of  the  super- 
cargo ;  he  had  no  wish  to  sail  alone,  and  the  fear  of  this  con- 
tingency was  more  powerful  than  the  fear  of  the  bear. 

"  Mynheer  Kloots,  I  will  not  be  too  severe ;  if  the  animal  is 
chained,  so  that  it  does  not  approach  me,  I  will  consent  to  its 
remaining  on  board." 

"  I  will  keep  it  out  of  your  way  as  much  as  I  can  ;  but  as  for 
chaining  up  the  poor  animal,  it  will  howl  all  day  and  night,  and 
you  will  have  no  sleep,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,"  replied  Kloots. 

The  supercargo,  who  perceived  that  the  captain  was  positive, 
and  that  his  threats  were  disregarded,  did  all  that  a  man  could 
13 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

do  who  could  not  help  himself.  He  vowed  vengeance  in  his 
own  mind,  and  then,  with  an  air  of  condescension,  observed — 

"  Upon  those  conditions,  Mynheer  Kloots,  your  animal  may 
remain  on  board." 

Mynheer  Kloots  and  Philip  then  left  the  cabin  ;  the  former, 
who  was  in  no  very  good  humour,  muttering  as  he  walked  away 
— "  If  the  Company  send  their  monkeys  on  board,  I  think  I 
may  well  have  my  bear."  And,  pleased  with  his  joke,  Myn- 
heer Kloots  recovered  his  good  humour. 


CHAPTER  IX 

W  E  must  allow  the  Indian  fleet  to  pursue  its  way  to  the  Cape 
with  every  variety  of  wind  and  weather.  Some  had  parted 
company ;  but  the  rendezvous  was  Table  Bay,  from  which 
they  were  again  to  start  together. 

Philip  Vanderdecken  was  soon  able  to  render  some  service 
on  board.  He  studied  his  duty  diligently,  for  employment 
prevented  him  from  dwelling  too  much  upon  the  cause  of  his 
embarkation,  and  he  worked  hard  at  the  duties  of  the  ship, 
for  the  exercise  procured  for  him  that  sleep  which  otherwise 
would  have  been  denied. 

He  was  soon  a  favourite  of  the  captain,  and  intimate  with 
Hillebrant,  the  first  mate ;  the  second  mate,  Struys,  was  a 
morose  young  man,  with  whom  he  had  little  intercourse.  As 
for  the  supercargo,  Mynheer  Jacob  Janz  Von  Stroom,  he 
seldom  ventured  out  of  his  cabin.  The  bear,  Johannes,  was 
not  confined,  and  therefore  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  confined  him- 
self;  hardly  a  day  passed  that  he  did  not  look  over  a  letter 
which  he  had  framed  upon  the  subject,  all  ready  to  forward  to 
the  Company  ;  and  each  time  that  lie  perused  it  he  made  some 
alteration,  which  he  considered  would  give  additional  force 
to  his  complaint,  and  would  prove  still  more  injurious  to  the 
interests  of  Captain  Kloots. 

In  the  meantime,  in  happy  ignorance  of  all  that  was  passing 
in  the  poop-cabin,  Mynheer  Kloots  smoked  his  pipe,  drank  his 
schnapps,  and  played  with  Johannes.  The  animal  had  also 
contracted  a  great  affection  for  Philip,  and  used  to  walk  the 
watch  with  him. 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

There  was  another  party  in  the  ship  whom  we  must  not  lose 
sight  of — the  one-eyed  pilot,  Schriften,  who  appeared  to  have 
imbibed  a  great  animosity  towards  our  hero,  as  well  as  to  his 
dumb  favourite  the  bear.  As  Philip  held  the  rank  of  an  officer, 
Schriften  dared  not  openly  affront,  though  he  took  every 
opportunity  of  annoying  him,  and  was  constantly  inveighing 
against  him  before  the  ship's  company.  To  the  bear  he  was 
more  openly  inveterate,  and  seldom  passed  it  without  bestow- 
ing upon  it  a  severe  kick,  accompanied  with  a  horrid  curse. 
Although  no  one  on  board  appeared  to  be  fond  of  this  man, 
everybody  appeared  to  be  afraid  of  him,  and  he  had  obtained 
a  control  over  the  seamen  which  appeared  unaccountable. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  on  board  the  good  ship  Ter 
Schilling,  when,  in  company  with  two  others,  she  lay  becalmed 
about  two  days'  sail  to  the  Cape.  The  weather  was  intensely 
hot,  for  it  was  the  summer  in  those  southern  latitudes,  and 
Philip,  who  had  been  lying  down  under  the  awning  spread 
over  the  poop,  was  so  overcome  with  the  heat,  that  he  had 
fallen  asleep.  He  awoke  with  a  shivering  sensation  of  cold 
over  his  whole  body,  particularly  at  his  chest,  and  half  opening 
his  eyes  he  perceived  the  pilot,  Schriften,  leaning  over  him, 
and  holding  between  his  finger  and  his  thumb  a  portion  of 
the  chain  which  had  not  been  concealed,  and  to  which  was 
attached  the  sacred  relic.  Philip  closed  them  again,  to 
ascertain  what  were  the  man's  intentions :  he  found  that  he 
gradually  dragged  out  the  chain,  and  when  the  relic  was 
clear,  attempted  to  pass  the  whole  over  his  head,  evidently 
to  gain  possession  of  it.  Upon  his  attempt  Philip  started  up 
and  seized  him  by  the  waist. 

t(  Indeed  ! "  cried  Philip,  with  an  indignant  look,  as  he 
released  the  chain  from  the  pilot's  hand. 

But  Schriften  appeared  not  in  the  least  confused  at  being 
detected  in  his  attempt ;  looking  with  his  malicious  one  eye 
at  Philip,  he  mockingly  observed — 

"  Does  that  chain  hold  her  picture  ? — he  !  he  ! " 

Vanderdecken  rose,  pushed  him  away,  and  folded  his  arms. 

"  I  advise  you  not  to  be  quite  so  curious,  Master  Pilot,  or 
you  may  repent  it." 

"Or  perhaps,"  continued  the  pilot,  quite  regardless  of 
Philip's  wrath,  "  it  may  be  a  child's  caul,  a  sovereign  remedy 
against  drowning." 

75 


THE   PHANTOM    SHIP 

"  Go  forward  to  your  duty,  sir,"  cried  Philip. 

"  Or,  as  you  are  a  Catholic,  the  finger-nail  of  a  saint ;  or, 
yes,  I  have  it — a  piece  of  the  holy  cross." 

Philip  started. 

"  That's  it !  that's  it ! "  cried  Schriften,  who  now  went  for- 
ward to  where  the  seamen  were  standing  at  the  gangway. 
"  News  for  you,  my  lads  !  "  said  he ;  "  we've  a  bit  of  the  holy 
cross  aboard,  and  so  we  may  defy  the  devil !  " 

Philip,  hardly  knowing  why,  had  followed  Schriften  as  he 
descended  the  poop-ladder,  and  was  forward  on  the  quarter- 
deck when  the  pilot  made  this  remark  to  the  seamen. 

"  Ay  !  ay  ! "  replied  an  old  seaman  to  the  pilot ;  "  not  only 
the  devil,  but  the  Flying  Dutchman  to  boot." 

"  The  Flying  Dutchman,"  thought   Philip,  "  can  that  refer 

to ?  "  and  Philip  walked  a  step  or  two  forward,  so  as  to 

conceal  himself  behind  the  mainmast,  hoping  to  obtain  some 
information,  should  they  continue  the  conversation.  In  this 
he  was  not  disappointed. 

"  They  say  that  to  meet  with  him  is  worse  than  meeting 
with  the  devil,"  observed  another  of  the  crew. 

"  Who  ever  saw  him  ?  "  said  another. 

"  He  has  been  seen,  that's  sartain,  and  just  as  sartain  that 
ill  luck  follows  the  vessel  that  falls  in  with  him." 

"  And  where  is  he  to  be  fallen  in  with  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  they  say  that's  not  so  sartain — but  he  cruises  off  the 
Cape." 

"  I  should  like  to  know  the  whole  long  and  short  of  the 
story,"  said  a  third. 

"  I  can  only  tell  what  I've  heard.  It's  a  doomed  vessel ; 
they  were  pirates,  and  cut  the  captain's  throat,  I  believe." 

"  No !  no  ! "  cried  Schriften,  "  the  captain  is  in  her  now  ; 
and  a  villain  he  was.  They  say  that,  like  somebody  else  on 
board  of  us  now,  he  left  a  very  pretty  wife,  and  that  he  was 
very  fond  of  her." 

"  How  do  they  know  that,  pilot  ?  " 

"  Because  he  always  wants  to  send  letters  home  when  he 
boards  vessels  that  he  falls  in  with.  But,  woe  to  the  vessel 
that  takes  charge  of  them  ! — she  is  sure  to  be  lost,  with  every 
soul  on  board  !  " 

"  I  wonder  where  you  heard  all  this,"  said  one  of  the  men. 
"  Did  you  ever  see  the  vessel  ?  " 
76 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Yes,  I  did ! "  screamed  Schriften ;  but,  as  if  recovering 
himself,  his  scream  subsided  into  his  usual  giggle,  and  he 
added,  "  but  we  need  not  fear  her,  boys ;  we've  a  bit  of  the 
true  cross  on  board."  Schriften  then  walked  aft  as  if  to  avoid 
being  questioned,  when  he  perceived  Philip  by  the  mainmast. 

"So,  I'm  not  the  only  one  curious? — he!  he!  Pray  did 
you  bring  that  on  board,  in  case  we  should  fall  in  with  the 
Flying  Dutchman  ?  " 

"  I  fear  no  Flying  Dutchman,"  replied  Philip,  confused. 

"  Now  I  think  of  it,  you  are  of  the  same  name ;  at  least 
they  say  that  his  name  was  Vanderdecken — eh  ?" 

"  There  are  many  Vanderdeckens  in  the  world  besides  me," 
replied  Philip,  who  had  recovered  his  composure  ;  and  having 
made  this  reply  he  walked  away  to  the  poop  of  the  vessel. 

"  One  would  almost  imagine  this  malignant  one-eyed  wretch 
was  aware  of  the  cause  of  my  embarkation,"  mused  Philip; 
"  but  no !  that  cannot  be.  Why  do  I  feel  such  a  chill 
whenever  he  approaches  me  ?  I  wonder  if  others  do ;  or 
whether  it  is  a  mere  fancy  on  the  part  of  Amine  and  myself. 
I  dare  ask  no  questions.  Strange,  too,  that  the  man  should 
feel  such  malice  towards  me.  I  never  injured  him.  What  I 
have,  just  overheard  confirms  all ;  but  there  needed  no  con- 
firmation. O  Amine  !  Amine !  but  for  thee,  and  I  would 
rejoice  to  solve  this  riddle  at  the  expense  of  life.  God  in 
mercy  check  the  current  of  my  brain,"  muttered  Philip,  "  or 
my  reason  cannot  hold  its  seat !  " 

In  three  days  the  Ter  Schilling  and  her  consorts  arrived  at 
Table  Bay,  where  they  found  the  remainder  of  the  fleet  at 
anchor  waiting  for  them.  Just  at  that  period  the  Dutch  had 
formed  a  settlement  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  where  the 
Indian  fleets  used  to  water  and  obtain  cattle  from  the  Hot- 
tentot tribes  who  lived  on  the  coast,  and  who  for  a  brass  button 
or  a  large  nail  would  willingly  offer  a  fat  bullock.  A  few  days 
were  occupied  in  completing  the  water  of  the  squadron,  and 
then  the  ships,  having  received  from  the  admiral  their  instruc- 
tions as  to  the  rendezvous  in  case  of  parting  company,  and  made 
every  preparation  for  the  bad  weather  which  they  anticipated, 
again  weighed  their  anchors  and  proceeded  on  their  voyage. 

For  three  days  they  beat  against  light  and  baffling  winds, 
making  but  little  progress ;  on  the  third,  the  breeze  sprang 
up  strong  from  the  southward,  until  it  increased  to  a  gale,  and 
77 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

the  fleet  were  blown  down  to  the  northward  of  the  bay.  .  On 
the  seventh  day  the  Ter  Schilling  found  herself  alone,  but  the 
weather  had  moderated.  Sail  was  again  made  upon  the 
vessel,  and  her  head  put  to  the  eastward,  that  she  might  run 
in  for  the  land. 

"  We  are  unfortunate  in  thus  parting  with  all  our  consorts," 
observed  Mynheer  Kloots  to  Philip,  as  they  were  standing  at 
the  gangway  ;  "  but  it  must  be  near  meridian,  and  the  sun  will 
enable  me  to  discover  our  latitude.  It  is  difficult  to  say  how 
far  we  may  have  been  swept  by  the  gale  and  the  currents  to 
the  northward.  Boy,  bring  up  my  cross-staff,  and  be  mindful 
that  you  do  not  strike  it  against  anything  as  you  come  up." 

The  cross-staff  at  that  time  was  the  simple  instrument  used 
to  discover  the  latitude,  which  it  would  give  to  a  nice  observer 
to  within  five  or  ten  miles.  Quadrants  and  sextants  were  the 
invention  of  a  much  later  period.  Indeed,  considering  that 
they  had  so  little  knowledge  of  navigation  and  the  variation 
of  the  compass,  and  that  their  easting  and  westing  could 
only  be  computed  by  dead  reckoning,  it  is  wonderful  how 
our  ancestors  traversed  the  ocean  in  the  way  they  did,  with 
comparatively  so  few  accidents. 

"  We  are  full  three  degrees  to  the  northward  of  the  Cape," 
observed  Mynheer  Kloots,  after  he  had  computed  his  latitude. 
"  The  currents  must  be  running  strong ;  the  wind  is  going 
down  fast,  and  we  shall  have  a  change,  if  I  mistake  not." 

Towards  the  evening  it  fell  calm,  with  a  heavy  swell  setting 
towards  the  shore  ;  shoals  of  seals  appeared  .on  the  surface, 
following  the  vessel  as  she  drove  before  the  swell ;  the  fish 
darted  and  leaped  in  every  direction,  and  the  ocean  around 
them  appeared  to  be  full  of  life  as  the  sun  slowly  descended  to 
the  horizon. 

"  What  is  that  noise  we  hear  ?  "  observed  Philip  ;  "  it  sounds 
like  distant  thunder." 

"  I  hear  it,"  replied  Mynheer  Kloots.  "  Aloft  there,  do  you 
see  the  land  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  man,  after  a  pause  in  ascending  the  top- 
mast shrouds.  "  It  is  right  ahead — low  sand-hills,  and  the  sea 
breaking  high." 

"Then  that  must  be  the  noise  we  hear.  We  sweep  in 
fast  with  this  heavy  ground-swell.  I  wish  the  breeze  would 
spring  up." 

78 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

The  sun  was  dipping  under  the  horizon,  and  the  calm  still 
continued ;  the  swell  had  driven  the  Ter  Schilling  so  rapidly 
on  the  shore  that  now  they  could  see  the  breakers,  which  fell 
over  with  the  noise  of  thunder. 

"  Do  you  know  the  coast,  pilot  ? "  observed  the  captain  to 
Schriften,  who  stood  by. 

"  Know  it  well,"  replied  Schriften  ;  "  the  sea  breaks  in  twelve 
fathoms  at  least.  In  half-an-hour  the  good  ship  will  be  beaten 
into  toothpicks,  without  a  breeze  to  help  us."  And  the  little 
man  giggled  as  if  pleased  at  the  idea. 

The  anxiety  of  Mynheer  Kloots  was  not  to  be  concealed  ; 
his  pipe  was  every  moment  in  and  out  of  his  mouth.  The 
crew  remained  in  groups  on  the  forecastle  and  gangway, 
listening  with  dismay  to  the  fearful  roaring  of  the  breakers. 
The  sun  had  sunk  down  below  the  horizon,  and  the  gloom  of 
night  was  gradually  adding  to  the  alarm  of  the  crew  of  the 
Ter  Schilling. 

te  We  must  lower  down  the  boats,"  said  Mynheer  Kloots  to 
the  first  mate,  "and  try  to  tow  her  off.  We  cannot  do  much 
good,  I'm  afraid  ;  but  at  all  events  the  boats  will  be  ready  for 
the  men  to  get  into  before  she  drives  on  shore.  Get  the  tow 
ropes  out  and  lower  down  the  boats,  while  I  go  in  to  acquaint 
the  supercargo." 

Mynheer  Von  Stroom  was  sitting  in  all  the  dignity  of  his 
office,  and  it  being  Sunday,  had  put  on  his  very  best  wig.  He 
was  once  more  reading  over  the  letter  to  the  Company,  relative 
to  the  bear,  when  Mynheer  Kloots  made  his  appearance,  and 
infonned  him  in  a  few  words  that  they  were  in  a  situation  of 
peculiar  danger,  and  that  in  all  probability  the  ship  would  be 
in  pieces  in  less  than  half-an-hour.  At  this  alarming  intel- 
ligence, Mynheer  Von  Stroom  jumped  up  from  his  chair, 
and  in  his  hurry  and  fear  knocked  down  the  candle  which 
had  just  been  lighted. 

"  In  danger  !  Mynheer  Kloots  ! — why,  the  water  is  smooth 
and  the  wind  down!  My  hat — where  is  my  hat  and  my  cane? 
I  will  go  on  deck.  Quick  !  A  light — Mynheer  Kloots,  if  you 
please  to  order  a  light  to  be  brought;  I  can  find  nothing  in  the 
dark.  Mynheer  Kloots,  why  do  you  not  answer  ?  Mercy  on 
me  !  he  is  gone  and  has  left  me." 

Mynheer  Kloots  had  gone  to  fetch  a  light,  and  now  returned 
with  it.  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  put  on  his  hat,  and  walked  out 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

of  the  cabin.  The  boats  were  down,  and  the  ship's  head  had 
been  turned  round  from  the  land;  but  it  was  now  quite  dark, 
and  nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  the  white  line  of  foam  created 
by  the  breakers  as  they  dashed  with  an  awful  noise  against 
the  shore. 

"Mynheer  Kloots,  if  you  please,  I'll  leave  the  ship  directly. 
Let  my  boat  come  alongside — I  must  have  the  largest  boat 
for  the  Honourable  Company's  service — for  the  papers  and 
myself." 

"  I'm  afraid  not,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,"  replied  Kloots ; 
"  our  boats  will  hardly  hold  the  men  as  it  is,  and  every  man's 
life  is  as  valuable  to  himself  as  yours  is  to  you." 

"  But,  Mynheer,  I  am  the  Company's  supercargo.  I  order 
you — I  will  have  one — refuse  if  you  dare." 

"  I  dare,  and  do  refuse,"  replied  the  captain,  taking  his  pipe 
out  of  his  mouth. 

"  Well,  well,"  replied  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,  who  now  lost 

all  presence  of  mind — "we  will,  sir .as  soon  as  we  arrive 

— Lord  help  us  ! we  are  lost.  O  Ixml!  O  Lord!"  And 

here  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,  not  knowing  why,  hurried  down  to 
the  cabin,  and  in  his  haste  tumbled  over  the  bear  Johannes, 
who  crossed  his  path,  and  in  his  fall  his  hat  and  flowing  wig 
parted  company  with  his  head. 

"  O  mercy  !  where  am  I  ?  Help  —  help  here  !  for  the 
Honourable  Company's  supercargo  !  " 

"Cast  off  there  in  the  boats,  and  come  on  board,"  cried 
Mynheer  Kloots ;  "  we  have  no  time  to  spare.  Quick  now, 
Philip,  put  in  the  compass,  the  water,  and  the  biscuit;  we  must 
leave  her  in  five  minutes." 

So  appalling  was  the  roar  of  the  breakers,  that  it  was  with 
difficulty  that  the  orders  could  be  heard.  In  the  meantime 
Mynheer  Von  Stroom  lay  upon  the  deck,  kicking,  sprawling, 
and  crying  for  help. 

"There  is  a  light  breeze  off  the  shore,"  cried  Philip,  holding 
up  his  hand. 

"There  is,  but  I'm  afraid  it  is  too  late.  Hand  the  things 
into  the  boats,  and  be  cool,  my  men.  We  have  yet  a  chance 
of  saving  her,  if  the  wind  freshens." 

They  were  now  so  near  to  the  breakers  that  they  felt  the 
swell  in  which  the  vessel  lay  becalmed  turned  over  here  and 
there  on  its  long  line,  but  the  breeze  freshened,  and  the  vessel 
80 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

•was  stationary !  The  men  were  all  in  the  boats,  with  the 
exception  of  Mynheer  Kloots,  the  mates,  and  Mynheer  Von 
Stroom. 

"  She  goes  through  the  water  now/'  said  Philip. 

"Yes,  I  think  we  shall  save  her,"  replied  the  captain. 
"Steady  as  you  go,  Hillebrant,"  continued  he  to  the  first  mate, 
who  was  at  the  helm.  "We  leave  the  breakers  now — only  let 
the  breeze  hold  ten  minutes." 

The  breeze  was  steady,  the  Ter  Schilling  stood  off  from  the 
land ;  again  it  fell  calm,  and  again  she  was  swept  towards  the 
breakers ;  at  last  the  breeze  came  off  strong,  and  the  vessel 
cleaved  through  the  water.  The  men  were  called  out  of  the 
boats;  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  was  picked  up  along  with  his  hat 
and  wig,  carried  into  the  cabin,  and  in  less  than  an  hour  the 
Ter  Schilling  was  out  of  danger. 

"  Now  we  will  hoist  up  the  boats,"  said  Mynheer  Kloots ; 
"  and  let  us  all,  before  we  lie  down  to  sleep,  thank  God  for  our 
deliverance." 

During  that  night  the  Ter  Schilling  made  an  offing  of  twenty 
miles,  and  then  stood  to  the  southward ;  towards  the  morning 
the  wind  again  fell,  and  it  was  nearly  calm. 

Mynheer  Kloots  had  been  on  deck  about  an  hour,  and  had 
been  talking  with  Hillebrant  upon  the  danger  of  the  evening, 
and  the  selfishness  and  pusillanimity  of  Mynheer  Von  Stroom, 
when  a  loud  noise  was  heard  in  the  poop-cabin. 

"What  can  that  be?"  said  the  captain;  "has  the  good  man 
lost  his  senses  from  the  fright?  Why,  he  is  knocking  the  cabin 
to  pieces." 

At  this  moment  the  servant  of  the  supercargo  ran  out  of  the 
cabin. 

"  Mynheer  Kloots,  hasten  in — help  my  master — he  will  be 
killed— the  bear !— the  bear  ! " 

"  The  bear !  what,  Johannes  ? "  cried  Mynheer  Kloots. 
"  Why,  the  animal  is  as  tame  as  a  dog.  I  will  go  and  see." 

But  before  Mynheer  Kloots  could  walk  into  the  cabin,  out 
flew  in  his  shirt  the  affrighted  supercargo.  "  My  God  !  my 
God!  am  I  to  be  murdered? — eaten  alive  ?"  cried  he,  running 
forward,  and  attempting  to  climb  the  fore-rigging. 

Mynheer  Kloots  followed  the  motions  of  Mynheer  Von 
Stroom  with  surprise,  and  when  he  found  him  attempting  to 
mount  the  rigging,  he  turned  aft  and  walked  into  the  cabin4 
81  F 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

when  be  found,  to  his  surprise,  that  Johannes  was  indeed 
doing  mischief. 

The  panelling  of  the  state  cabin  of  the  supercargo  had  been 
beaten  down,  the  wig  boxes  lay  in  fragments  on  the  floor,  the 
two  spare  wigs  were  lying  by  them,  and  upon  them  were 
strewed  fragments  of  broken  pots  and  masses  of  honey,  which 
Johannes  was  licking  up  with  peculiar  gusto. 

The  fact  was,  that  when  the  ship  anchored  at  Table  Bay, 
Mynheer  Von  Stroom,  who  was  very  partial  to  honey,  had 
obtained  some  from  the  Hottentots.  The  honey  his  careful 
servant  had  stowed  away  in  jars,  which  he  had  placed  at  the 
bottom  of  the  two  long  boxes,  ready  for  his  master's  use  during 
the  remainder  of  the  voyage.  That  morning  the  servant, 
fancying  that  the  wig  of  the  previous  night  had  suffered  when 
his  master  tumbled  over  the  bear,  opened  one  of  the  boxes  to 
take  out  another.  Johannes  happened  to  come  near  the  door, 
and  scented  the  honey.  Now,  partial  as  Mynheer  Von  Stroom 
was  to  honey,  all  bears  are  still  more  so,  and  will  venture 
everything  to  obtain  it.  Johannes  had  yielded  to  the  impulse 
of  his  species,  and  following  the  scent,  had  come  into  the 
cabin,  and  was  about  to  enter  the  sleeping-berth  of  Mynheer 
Stroom,  when  the  servant  slammed  the  door  in  his  face ; 
whereupon  Johannes  beat  in  the  panels,  and  found  an  en- 
trance. He  then  attacked  the  wig-boxes,  and,  by  showing 
a  most  formidable  set  of  teeth,  proved  to  the  servant,  who 
attempted  to  drive  him  off,  that  he  would  not  be  trifled  with. 
In  the  meanwhile,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  was  in  the  utmost 
terror;  not  aware  of  the  purport  of  the  bear's  visit,  he 
imagined  that  the  animal's  object  was  to  attack  him.  His 
servant  took  to  his  heels  after  a  vain  effort  to  save  the  last 
box,  and  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,  then  finding  himself  alone, 
at  length  sprang  out  of  his  bed-place,  and  escaped,  as  we 
have  mentioned,  to  the  forecastle,  leaving  Johannes  master 
of  the  field,  and  luxuriating  upon  the  spolia  opima.  Mynheer 
Kloots  immediately  perceived  how  the  case  stood.  He  went 
up  to  the  bear  and  spoke  to  him,  then  kicked  him,  but  the 
bear  would  not  leave  the  honey,  and  growled  furiously  at 
the  interruption.  "This  is  a  bad  job  for  you,  Johannes," 
observed  Mynheer  Kloots ;  "  now  you  will  leave  the  ship, 
for  the  supercargo  has  just  grounds  of  complaint.  Oh,  well ! 
you  must  eat  the  honey,  because  you  will."  So  saying, 
82 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Mynheer  Kloots  left  the  cabin,  and  went  to  look  after  the 
supercargo,  who  remained  on  the  forecastle,  with  his  bald 
head  and  meagre  body,  haranguing  the  men  in  his  shirt, 
which  fluttered  in  the  breeze. 

"  I  am  very  sorry,  Mynheer  Von  Stroom,"  said  Kloots, 
"  but  the  bear  shall  be  sent  out  of  the  vessel." 

"  Yes,  yes,  Mynheer  Kloots ;  but  this  is  an  affair  for  the 
most  puissant  Company — the  lives  of  their  servants  are  not  to 
be  sacrificed  to  the  folly  of  a  sea-captain.  I  have  nearly  been 
torn  to  pieces." 

"  The  animal  did  not  want  you ;  all  he  wanted  was  the 
honey,"  replied  Kloots.  "  He  has  got  it,  and  I  myself  cannot 
take  it  from  him.  There  is  no  altering  the  nature  of  an 
animal.  Will  you  be  pleased  to  walk  down  into  my  cabin 
until  the  beast  can  be  secured  ?  He  shall  not  go  loose 
again." 

Mynheer  Von  Stroom,  who  considered  his  dignity  at  vari  • 
ance  with  his  appearance,  and  who,  perhaps,  was  aware  that 
majesty  deprived  of  its  externals  was  only  a  jest,  thought  it 
advisable  to  accept  the  offer.  After  some  trouble,  with  the 
assistance  of  the  seamen,  the  bear  was  secured  and  dragged 
away  from  the  cabin,  much  against  his  will,  for  he  had  still 
some  honey  to  lick  off  the  curls  of  the  full-bottomed  wigs 
He  was  put  into  durance  vile,  having  been  caught  in  the 
flagrant  act  of  burglary  on  the  high  seas.  This  new  adventure 
was  the  topic  of  the  day,  for  it  was  again  a  dead  calm,  and 
the  ship  lay  motionless  on  the  glassy  wave. 

"The  sun  looks  red  as  he  sinks,"  observed  Hillebrant  to 
the  captain,  who  with  Philip  was  standing  on  the  poop  ;  "  we 
shall  have  wind  before  to-morrow,  if  I  mistake  not." 

"  I  am  of  your  opinion,"  replied  Mynheer  Kloots.  "  It  is 
strange  that  we  do  not  fall  in  with  any  of  the  vessels  of  the 
fleet.  They  must  all  have  been  driven  down  here." 

fi  Perhaps  they  have  kept  a  wider  offing." 

"  It  had  been  as  well  if  we  had  done  the  same,"  said  Kloots. 
"  That  was  a  narrow  escape  last  night.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  having  too  little  as  well  as  having  too  much  wind." 

A  confused  noise  was  heard  among  the  seamen,  who  were 
collected  together,  and  looking  in  the  direction  of  the  vessel's 
quarter,  "  A  ship !  No — Yes,  it  is  !  "  was  repeated  more  than 
once. 

83 


THE    PHANTOM   SHIP 

"They  think  they  see  a  ship,"  said  Schriften,  coming  on 
the  poop.  "  He  !  he  ! " 

"  Where  ?  " 

"There  in  the  gloom!"  said  the  pilot,  pointing  to  the 
darkest  quarter  in  the  horizon,  for  the  sun  had  set. 

The  captain,  Hillebrant,  and  Philip  directed  their  eyes  to 
the  quarter  pointed  out,  and  thought  they  could  perceive  some- 
thing like  a  vessel.  Gradually  the  gloom  seemed  to  clear 
away,  and  a  lambent  pale  blaze  to  light  up  that  part  of  the 
horizon.  Not  a  breath  of  wind  was  on  the  water— the  sea  was 
like  a  mirror — more  and  more  distinct  did  the  vessel  appear, 
till  her  hull,  masts,  and  yards  were  clearly  visible.  They  looked 
and  rubbed  their  eyes  to  help  their  vision,  for  scarcely  could 
they  believe  that  which  they  did  see.  In  the  centre  of  the 
pale  light,  which  extended  about  fifteen  degrees  above  the 
horizon,  there  was  indeed  a  large  ship  about  three  miles  dis- 
tant ;  but  although  it  was  a  perfect  calm,  she  was  to  all  appear- 
ance buffeting  in  a  violent  gale,  plunging  and  lifting  over  a 
surface  that  was  smooth  as  glass,  now  careening  to  her  bearings, 
then  recovering  herself.  Her  topsails  and  mainsail  were  furled, 
and  the  yards  pointed  to  the  wind  ;  she  had  no  sail  set,  but  a 
close-reefed  foresail,  a  storm  staysail,  and  trysail  abaft.  She 
made  little  way  through  the  water,  but  apparently  neared  them 
fast,  driven  down  by  the  force  of  the  gale.  Each  minute  she 
was  plainer  to  the  view.  At  last  she  was  seen  to  wear,  and 
in  so  doing,  before  she  was  brought  to  the  wind  on  the  other 
tack,  she  was  so  close  to  them  that  they  could  distinguish  the 
men  on  board :  they  could  see  the  foaming  water  as  it  was 
hurled  from  her  bows ;  hear  the  shrill  whistle  of  the  boats- 
wain's pipes,  the  creaking  of  the  ship's  timbers,  and  the  com- 
plaining of  her  masts ;  and  then  the  gloom  gradually  rose, 
and  in  a  few  seconds  she  had  totally  disappeared  ! 

"  God  in  heaven  !  "  exclaimed  Mynheer  Kloots. 

Philip  felt  a  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  and  the  cold  darted 
through  his  whole  frame.  He  turned  round  and  met  the  one 
eye  of  Schriften,  who  screamed  in  his  ear — 

« PHILIP  VANDERDECKEN— That's  the  Flying  Dutchman/" 


" '  There  in  the  gloom !  '  said  the  pilot,  pointing  to  the  darkest 
quarter  of  the  horizon." 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

/ 
CHAPTER  X 

_L  HE  sudden  gloom  which  had  succeeded  to  the  pale  light 
had  the  effect  of  rendering  every  object  still  more  indis- 
tinct to  the  astonished  crew  of  the  Ter  Schilling.  For  a 
moment  or  more  not  a  word  was  uttered  by  a  soul  on 
board.  Some  remained  with  their  eyes  still  strained  to- 
wards the  point  where  the  apparition  had  been  seen, 
others  turned  away  full  of  gloomy  and  foreboding  thoughts. 
Hillebrant  was  the  first  who  spoke  :  turning  round  to  the 
eastern  quarter,  and  observing  a  light  on  the  horizon,  he 
started,  and  seizing  Philip  by  the  arm,  cried  out,  "What's 
that  ?  " 

"That  is  only  the  moon  rising  from  the  bank  of  clouds," 
replied  Philip  mournfully. 

"  Well ! "  observed  Mynheer  Kloots,  wiping  his  forehead, 
which  was  damp  with  perspiration,  "  I  have  been  told  of  this 
before,  but  I  have  mocked  at  the  narration." 

Philip  made  no  reply.  Aware  of  the  reality  of  the  vision, 
and  how  deeply  it  interested  him,  he  felt  as  if  he  were  a  guilty 
person. 

The  moon  had  now  risen  above  the  clouds,  and  was  pouring 
her  mild  pale  light  over  the  slumbering  ocean.  With  a 
simultaneous  impulse,  every  one  directed  his  eyes  to  the  spot 
where  the  strange  vision  had  last  been  seen ;  and  all  was  a 
dead,  dead  calm. 

Since  the  apparition,  the  pilot  Schriften  had  remained  on 
the  poop ;  he  now  gradually  approached  Mynheer  Kloots, 
and  looking  round,  said — 

"  Mynheer  Kloots,  as  pilot  of  this  vessel,  I  tell  you  that 
you  must  prepare  for  very  bad  weather." 

"  Bad  weather  ! "  said  Kloots,  rousing  himself  from  a  deep 
reverie. 

"  Yes,  bad  weather,  Mynheer  Kloots.     There  never  was  a 

vessel  which  fell  in  with what  we  have  just  seen,  but  met 

with  disaster  soon  afterwards.  The  very  name  of  Vanderdecken 
is  unlucky — He  !  he  !  " 

Philip  would  have  replied  to  the  sarcasm,  but  he  could 
not ;  his  tongue  was  tied. 

85 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

"What  has  the  name  of  Vanderdecken  to  do  with  it?" 
observed  K  loots. 

"  Have  you  not  heard,  then  ?  The  captain  of  that  vessel 
we  have  just  seen  is  a  Mynheer  Vanderdecken— he  is  the 
Flying  Dutchman  ! " 

"  How  know  you  that,  pilot  ?  "  inquired  Hillebrant. 

"  I  know  that,  and  much  more,  if  I  chose  to  tell,"  replied 
Schrifteii ;  "  but  never  mind,  I  have  warned  you  of  bad 
weather,  as  is  my  duty ;  "  and  with  these  words  Schriften 
went  down  the  poop-ladder. 

"  God  in  heaven  !  I  never  was  so  puzzled  and  so  frightened 
in  my  life,"  observed  Kloots.  "  I  don't  know  what  to  think 
or  say.  What  think  you,  Philip  ?  was  it  not  supernatural  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  Philip  mournfully.    "I  have  no  doubt  of  it." 

"  I  thought  the  days  of  miracles  had  passed,"  said  the 
captain,  "  and  that  we  were  now  left  to  our  own  exertions, 
and  had  no  other  warnings  but  those  the  appearance  of  the 
heavens  gave  us." 

"  And  they  warn  us  now,"  observed  Hillebrant.  "  See  how 
that  bank  of  clouds  has  risen  within  these  five  minutes — the 
moon  has  escaped  from  it,  but  it  will  soon  catch  her  again — 
and  see,  there  is  a  flash  of  lightning  in  the  north-west." 

"  Well,  my  sons,  I  can  brave  the  elements  as  well  as  any 
man,  and  do  my  best.  I  have  cared  little  for  gales  or  stress 
of  weather  ;  but  I  like  not  such  a  warning  as  we  have  had 
to-night.  My  heart's  as  heavy  as  lead,  and  that's  the  truth. 
Philip,  send  down  for  the  bottle  of  schnapps,  if  it  is  only  to 
clear  my  brain  a  little." 

Philip  was  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  quit  the  poop ;  he 
wished  to  have  a  few  minutes  to  recover  himself  and  collect 
his  own  thoughts.  The  appearance  of  the  Phantom  Ship 
had  been  to  him  a  dreadful  shock  ;  not  that  he  had  not  fully 
believed  in  its  existence ;  but  still,  to  have  beheld,  to  have 
been  so  near  that  vessel— that  vessel  in  which  his  father 
was  fulfilling  his  awful  doom — that  vessel  on  board  of  which 
he  felt  sure  that  his  own  destiny  was  to  be  worked  out — had 
given  a  whirl  to  his  brain.  When  he  had  heard  the  sound 
of  the  boatswain's  whistle  on  board  of  her,  eagerly  had  he 
stretched  his  hearing  to  catch  the  order  given — and  given, 
he  was  convinced,  in  his  father's  voice.  Nor  had  his  eyes 
been  less  called  to  aid  in  his  attempt  to  discover  the  features 
86 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

and  dress  of  those  moving  on  her  decks.  As  soon,  then,  as 
he  had  sent  the  boy  up  to  Mynheer  Kloots,  Philip  hastened 
to  his  cabin  and  buried  his  face  in  the  coverlet  of  his  bed, 
and  then  he  prayed — prayed  until  he  had  recovered  his 
usual  energy  and  courage,  and  had  brought  his  mind  to  that 
state  of  composure  which  could  enable  him  to  look  forward 
calmly  to  danger  and  difficulty,  and  feel  prepared  to  meet 
it  with  the  heroism  of  a  martyr. 

Philip  remained  below  not  more  than  half-an-hour.  On  his 
return  to  the  deck,  what  a  change  had  taken  place  !  He  had 
left  the  vessel  floating  motionless  on  the  still  waters,  with  her 
lofty  sails  hanging  down  listlessly  from  the  yards.  The  moon 
then  soared  aloft  in  her  beauty,  reflecting  the  masts  and  sails 
of  the  ship  in  extended  lines  upon  the  smooth  sea.  Now  all 
was  dark :  the  water  rippled  short  and  broke  in  foam  :  the 
smaller  and  lofty  sails  had  been  taken  in,  and  the  vessel  was 
cleaving  through  the  water ;  and  the  wind,  in  fitful  gusts  and 
angry  meanings,  proclaimed  too  surely  that  it  had  been  awak- 
ened up  to  wrath,  and  was  gathering  its  strength  for  destruc- 
tion. The  men  were  still  busy  reducing  the  sails,  but  they 
worked  gloomily  and  discontentedly.  What  Schriften,  the 
pilot,  had  said  to  them,  Philip  knew  not ;  but  that  they  avoided 
him  and  appeared  to  look  upon  him  with  feelings  of  ill-will, 
was  evident.  And  each  minute  the  gale  increased. 

"  The  wind  is  not  steady,"  observed  Hillebrant ;  "  there 
is  no  saying  from  which  quarter  the  storm  may  blow :  it  has 
already  veered  round  five  points.  Philip,  I  don't  much  like 
the  appearance  of  things,  and  I  may  say  with  the  captain 
that  my  heart  is  heavy." 

"  And,  indeed,  so  is  mine,"  replied  Philip ;  "  but  we  are 
in  the  hands  of  a  merciful  Providence." 

"  Hard  a-port  !  flatten  in  forward  !  brail  up  the  trysail, 
my  men  !  Be  smart !  "  cried  Kloots,  as  from  the  wind's 
chopping  round  to  the  northward  and  westward,  the  ship 
was  taken  aback,  and  careened  low  before  it.  The  rain  now 
came  down  in  torrents,  and  it  was  so  dark  that  it  was  with 
difficulty  they  could  perceive  each  other  on  the  deck. 

"  We  must  clew  up  the  topsails  while  the  men  can  get  upon 
the  yards.  See  to  it  forward,  Mynheer  Hillebrant." 

The  lightning  now  darted  athwart  the  firmament,  and  the 
thunder  pealed. 

87 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Quick  !  quick,  my  men,  let's  furl  all ! " 

The  sailors  shook  the  water  from  their  streaming  clothes, 
some  worked,  others  took  advantage  of  the  night  to  hide 
themselves  away  and  commune  with  their  own  fears. 

All  canvas  was  now  taken  off  the  ship,  except  the  forestay- 
sail,  and  she  flew  to  the  southward  with  the  wind  on  her 
quarter.  The  sea  had  now  risen,  and  roared  as  it  curled  in 
foam,  the  rain  fell  in  torrents,  the  night  was  dark  as  Erebus, 
and  the  wet  and  frightened  sailors  sheltered  themselves  under 
the  bulwarks.  Although  many  had  deserted  from  their  duty, 
there  was  not  one  who  ventured  below  that  night.  They  did 
not  collect  together  as  usual — every  man  preferred  solitude 
and  his  own  thoughts.  The  Phantom  Ship  dwelt  on  their 
imaginations  and  oppressed  their  brains. 

It  was  an  interminably  long  and  terrible  night  —  they 
thought  the  day  would  never  come.  At  last  the  darkness 
gradually  changed  to  a  settled  sullen  grey  gloom — which  was 
day.  They  looked  at  each  other,  but  found  no  comfort  in 
meeting  each  other's  eyes.  There  was  no  one  countenance 
in  which  a  beam  of  hope  could  be  found  lurking.  They 
were  all  doomed — they  remained  crouched  where  they  had 
sheltered  themselves  during  the  night,  and  said  nothing. 

The  sea  had  now  risen  mountains  high,  and  more  than 
once  had  struck  the  ship  abaft.  Kloots  was  at  the  binnacle, 
Hillebrant  and  Philip  at  the  helm,  when  a  wave  curled  high 
over  the  quarter,  and  poured  itself  in  resistless  force  upon  the 
deck.  The  captain  and  his  two  mates  were  swept  away,  and 
dashed  almost  senseless  against  the  bulwarks — the  binnacle 
and  compass  were  broken  into  fragments — no  one  ran  to  the 
helm— the  vessel  broached  to — the  seas  broke  clear  over  her, 
and  the  mainmast  went  by  the  board. 

All  was  confusion.  Captain  Kloots  was  stunned,  and  it 
was  with  difficulty  that  Philip  could  persuade  two  of  the  men 
to  assist  him  down  below.  Hillebrant  had  been  more  un- 
fortunate— his  right  arm  was  broken,  and  he  was  otherwise 
severely  bruised ;  Philip  assisted  him  to  his  berth,  and  then 
went  on  deck  again  to  try  and  restore  order. 

Philip  Vanderdecken  was  not  yet  much  of  a  seaman,  but, 

at  all  events,  he  exercised  that  moral  influence  over  the  men 

which  is  ever  possessed  by  resolution  and   courage.      Obey 

willingly  they  did  not,  but  they  did  obey,  and  in  half-an-hour 

88 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

the  vessel  was  clear  of  the  wreck.  Eased  by  the  loss  of  her 
heavy  mast,  and  steered  by  two  of  her  best  seamen,  she 
again  flew  before  the  gale. 

Where  was  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  during  all  this  work  of 
destruction  ?  In  his  bed-place,  covered  up  with  the  clothes, 
trembling  in  every  limb,  and  vowing  that  if  ever  again  he  put 
his  foot  on  shore,  not  all  the  companies  in  the  world  should 
induce  him  to  trust  to  salt-water  again.  It  certainly  was  the 
best  plan  for  the  poor  man. 

But  although  for  a  time  the  men  obeyed  the  orders  of 
Philip,  they  were  soon  seen  talking  earnestly  with  the  one- 
eyed  pilot,  and  after  a  consultation  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
they  all  left  the  deck,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  at  the 
helm.  Their  reasons  for  so  doing  were  soon  apparent — several 
returned  with  cans  full  of  liquor,  which  they  had  obtained  by 
forcing  the  hatches  of  the  spirit-room.  For  about  an  hour 
Philip  remained  on  deck,  persuading  the  men  not  to  intoxicate 
themselves,  but  in  vain  ;  the  cans  of  grog  offered  to  the  men 
at  the  wheel  were  not  refused,  and  in  a  short  time  the 
yawing  of  the  vessel  proved  that  the  liquor  had  taken  its 
effect.  Philip  then  hastened  down  below  to  ascertain  if 
Mynheer  Kloots  was  sufficiently  recovered  to  come  on  deck. 
He  found  him  sunk  into  a  deep  sleep,  and  with  difficulty  it 
was  that  he  roused  him,  and  made  him  acquainted  with  the 
distressing  intelligence.  Mynheer  Kloots  followed  Philip  on 
deck ;  but  he  still  suffered  from  his  fall :  his  head  was  con- 
fused, and  he  reeled  as  he  walked,  as  if  he  also  had  been 
making  free  with  the  liquor.  When  he  had  been  on  deck  a 
few  minutes,  he  sank  down  on  one  of  the  guns  in  a  state  of 
perfect  helplessness;  he  had,  in  fact,  received  a  severe  con- 
cussion of  the  brain.  Hillebrant  was  too  severely  injured  to 
be  able  to  move  from  his  bed,  and  Philip  was  now  aware  of 
the  helplessness  of  their  situation.  Daylight  gradually  dis- 
appeared, and  as  darkness  came  upon  them  so  did  the  scene 
become  more  appalling.  The  vessel  still  ran  before  the  gale, 
but  the  men  at  the  helm  had  evidently  changed  her  course, 
as  the  wind  that  was  on  the  starboard  was  now  on  the  lar- 
board quarter.  But  compass  there  was  none  on  deck,  and 
even  if  there  had  been,  the  men  in  their  drunken  state  would 
have  refused  to  listen  to  Philip's  orders  or  expostulations. 
«'  He,"  they  said,  "  was  no  sailor,  and  was  not  to  teach 
89 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

how  to  steer  the  ship."  The  gale  was  now  at  its  height.  The 
rain  had  ceased,  but  the  wind  had  increased,  and  it  roared  as 
it  urged  on  the  vessel,  which,  steered  so  wide  by  the  drunken 
sailors,  shipped  seas  over  each  gunnel ;  but  the  men  laughed, 
and  joined  the  chorus  of  their  songs  to  the  howling  of  the  gale. 

Schriften,  the  pilot,  appeared  to  be  the  leader  of  the  ship's 
company.  With  the  can  of  liquor  in  his  hand,  lie  danced  and 
sang,  snapped  his  fingers,  and,  like  a  demon,  peered  with  his 
one  eye  upon  Philip ;  and  then  would  he  fall  and  roll  with 
screams  of  laughter  in  the  scuppers.  More  liquor  was  handed 
up  as  fast  as  it  was  called  for.  Oaths,  shrieks,  laughter,  were 
mingled  together ;  the  men  at  the  helm  lashed  it  amidships, 
and  hastened  to  join  their  companions,  and  the  Tcr  Schilling 
flew  before  the  g;ile  ;  the  fore-staysail,  being  the  only  sail  set, 
checking  her  as  she  yawed  to  starboard  or  to  port.  Philip 
remained  on  deck  by  the  poop-ladder.  "Strange,"  thought 
he,  "  that  I  should  stand  here,  the  only  one  left  now  capable 
of  acting, — that  I  should  be  fated  to  look  by  myself  upon  this 
scene  of  horror  and  disgust — should  here  wait  the  severing  of 
this  vessel's  timbers, — the  loss  of  life  which  must  accompany 
it — the  only  one  calm  and  collected,  or  aware  of  what  must 
soon  take  place.  God  forgive  me,  but  I  appear,  useless  anil 
impotent  as  I  am,  to  stand  here  like  the  master  of  the  storm, 
— separated,  as  it  were,  from  my  brother  mortals  by  my  own 
peculiar  destiny.  It  must  be  so.  This  wreck  then  must  not 
be  for  me, — I  feel  that  it  is  not,  that  I  have  a  charmed  life, 
or  rather  a  protracted  one,  to  fulfil  the  oath  I  registered  in 
heaven.  But  the  wind  is  not  so  loud,  surely  the  water  is  not 
so  rough  :  my  forebodings  may  be  wrong,  and  all  may  yet  be 
saved.  Heaven  grant  it !  For  how  melancholy,  how  lament- 
able is  it,  to  behold  men  created  in  God's  own  image,  leaving 
the  world,  disgraced  below  the  brute  creation ! " 

Philip  was  right  in  supposing  that  the  wind  was  not  so 
strong,  nor  the  sea  so  high.  The  vessel,  after  running  to  the 
southward  till  past  Table  Bay,  had,  by  the  alteration  made  in 
her  course,  entered  into  False  Bay,  where,  to  a  certain  degree, 
she  was  sheltered  from  the  violence  of  the  winds  and  waves. 
But  although  the  water  was  smoother,  the  waves  were  still 
more  than  sufficient  to  beat  to  pieces  any  vessel  that  might  be 
driven  on  shore  at  the  bottom  of  the  bay,  to  which  point  the 
Ter  Schilling  was  now  running.  The  bay  so  far  offered  a  fair 
00 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

chance  of  escape,  as,  instead  of  the  rocky  coast  outside  (against 
which,  had  the  vessel  run,  a  few  seconds  would  have  insured 
her  destruction),  there  was  a  shelving  beach  of  loose  sand. 
But  of  this  Philip  could,  of  course,  have  no  knowledge,  for  the 
land  at  the  entrance  of  the  bay  had  been  passed  unperceived 
in  the  darkness  of  the  night.  About  twenty  minutes  more 
had  elapsed,  when  Philip  observed  that  the  whole  sea  around 
them  was  one  continued  foam.  He  had  hardly  time  for 
conjecture  before  the  ship  struck  heavily  on  the  sands,  and 
the  remaining  masts  fell  by  the  board. 

The  crash  of  the  falling  masts,  the  heavy  beating  of  the 
ship  on  the  sands,  which  caused  many  of  her  timbers  to  part, 
with  a  whole  sea  which  swept  clean  over  the  fated  vessel, 
checked  the  songs  and  drunken  revelry  of  the  crew.  Another 
minute,  and  the  vessel  was  swung  round  on  her  broadside 
to  the  sea,  and  lay  on  her  beam  ends.  Philip,  who  was  to 
windward,  clung  to  the  bulwark,  while  the  intoxicated  seamen 
floundered  in  the  water  to  leeward,  and  attempted  to  gain  the 
other  side  of  the  ship.  Much  to  Philip's  horror,  he  perceived 
the  body  of  Mynheer  Kloots  sink  down  in  the  water  (which 
now  was  several  feet  deep  on  the  lee  side  of  the  deck),  without 
any  apparent  effort  on  the  part  of  the  captain  to  save  himself. 
He  was  then  gone,  and  there  were  no  hopes  for  him.  Philip 
thought  of  Hillebrant,  and  hastened  down  below  ;  he  found 
him  still  in  his  bed-place,  lying  against  the  side.  He  lifted 
him  out,  and  with  difficulty  climbed  with  him  on  deck,  and 
laid  him  in  the  long-boat  on  the  booms,  as  the  best  chance  of 
saving  his  life.  To  this  boat,  the  only  one  which  could  be 
made  available,  the  crew  had  also  repaired  ;  but  they  repulsed 
Philip,  who  would  have  got  into  her ;  and  as  the  sea  made 
clean  breakers  over  them,  they  cast  loose  the  lashings  which 
confined  her.  With  the  assistance  of  another  heavy  sea  which 
lifted  her  from  the  chocks,  she  was  borne  clear  of  the  booms 
and  dashed  over  the  gunnel  into  the  water,  to  leeward,  which 
was  comparatively  smooth — not,  however,  without  being  filled 
nearly  up  to  the  thwarts.  But  this  was  little  cared  for  by  the 
intoxicated  seamen,  who,  as  soon  as  they  were  afloat,  again 
raised  their  shouts  and  songs  of  revelry  as  they  were  borne 
away  by  the  wind  and  sea  towards  the  beach.  Philip,  who 
held  on  by  the  stump  of  the  mainmast,  watched  them  with  an 
anxious  eye,  now  perceiving  them  borne  aloft  on  the  foaming 
91 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

surf,  now  disappearing  in  the  trough.  More  and  more  distant 
were  the  sounds  of  their  mad  voices,  till  at  last  he  could  hear 
them  no  more, — he  beheld  the  boat  balanced  on  an  enormous 
rolling  sea,  and  then  he  saw  it  not  again. 

Philip  knew  that  now  his  only  chance  was  to  remain  with 
the  vessel,  and  attempt  to  save  himself  upon  some  fragment  of 
the  wreck.  That  the  ship  would  long  hold  together  he  felt 
was  impossible  ;  already  she  had  parted  her  upper  decks,  and 
each  shock  of  the  waves  divided  her  more  and  more.  At  last, 
as  he  clung  to  the  mast,  he  heard  a  noise  abaft,  and  he  then 
recollected  that  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  was  still  in  his  cabin. 
Philip  crawled  aft,  and  found  that  the  poop-ladder  had  been 
thrown  against  the  cabin  door,  so  as  to  prevent  its  being 
opened.  He  removed  it  and  entered  the  cabin,  where  he 
found  Mynheer  Von  Stroom  clinging  to  windward  with  the 
grasp  of  death, — but  it  was  not  death,  but  the  paralysis 
of  fear.  He  spoke  to  him,  but  could  obtain  no  reply  ;  he 
attempted  to  move  him,  but  it  was  impossible  to  make  him 
let  go  the  part  of  the  bulk-head  that  he  grasped.  A  loud 
noise  and  the  rush  of  a  mass  of  water  told  Philip  that  the 
vessel  had  parted  amidships,  and  he  unwillingly  abandoned 
the  poor  supercargo  to  his  fate,  and  went  out  of  the  cabin 
door.  At  the  after-hatchway  he  observed  something  strug- 
gling,— it  was  Johannes  the  bear,  who  was  swimming,  but 
still  fastened  by  a  cord  which  prevented  his  escape.  Philip 
took  out  his  knife,  and  released  the  poor  animal,  and  hardlv 
had  he  done  this  act  of  kindness,  when  a  heavy  sea  turned 
over  the  after  part  of  the  vessel,  which  separated  in  many 
pieces,  and  Philip  found  himself  struggling  in  the  waves.  He 
seized  upon  a  part  of  the  deck  which  supported  him,  and  was 
borne  away  by  the  surf  towards  the  beach.  In  a  few  minutes 
he  was  near  to  the  land,  and  shortly  afterwards  the  piece  of 
planking  to  which  he  was  clinging  struck  on  the  sand,  and 
then,  being  turned  over  by  the  force  of  the  running  wave, 
Philip  lost  his  hold,  and  was  left  to  his  own  exertions.  He 
struggled  long,  but,  although  so  near  to  the  shore,  could  not 
gain  a  footing  ;  the  returning  wave  dragged  him  back,  and 
thus  was  he  hurled  to  and  fro  until  his  strength  was  gone. 
He  was  sinking  under  the  wave  to  rise  no  more,  when  he  felt 
Something  touch  his  hand.  He  seized  it  with  the  grasp  of 
death.  It  was  the  shaggy  hide  of  the  bear  Johannes,  who 
08 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

was  making  for  the  shore,  and  who  soon  dragged  him  deaf 
of  the  surf,  so  that  he  could  gain  a  footing.  Philip  crawled 
up  the  beach  above  the  reach  of  the  waves,  and,  exhausted 
with  fatigue,  sank  down  in  a  swoon. 

When  Philip  was  recalled  from  his  state  of  lethargy,  his  first 
feeling  was  intense  pain  in  his  still  closed  eyes,  arising  from 
having  been  many  hours  exposed  to  the  rays  of  an  ardent  sun. 
He  opened  them,  but  was  obliged  to  close  them  immediately, 
for  the  light  entered  into  them  like  the  point  of  a  knife.  He 
turned  over  on  his  side,  and  covering  them  with  his  hand, 
remained  some  time  in  that  position,  until,  by  degrees,  he 
found  that  his  eyesight  was  restored.  He  then  rose,  and 
after  a  few  seconds  could  distinguish  the  scene  around  him. 
The  sea  was  still  rough,  and  tossed  about  in  the  surf  frag- 
ments of  the  vessel  ;  the  whole  sand  was  strewed  with  her 
cargo  and  contents.  Near  him  was  the  body  of  Hillebrant, 
and  the  other  bodies  who  were  scattered  on  the  beach  told  him 
that  those  who  had  taken  to  the  boat  had  all  perished. 

It  was,  by  the  height  of  the  sun,  about  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  as  near  as  he  could  estimate  ;  but  Philip  suffered 
such  an  oppression  of  mind,  he  felt  so  wearied,  and  in  such 
pain,  that  he  took  but  a  slight  survey.  His  brain  was  whirl- 
ing, and  all  he  demanded  was  repose.  He  walked  away  from 
the  scene  of  destruction,  and  having  found  a  sandhill,  behind 
which  he  was  defended  from  the  burjiing  rays  of  the  sun,  he 
again  lay  down,  and  sank  into  a  deep  sleep,  from  which  he 
did  not  wake  until  the  ensuing  morning. 

Philip  was  roused  a  second  time  by  the  sensation  of  some- 
thing pricking  him  on  the  chest.  He  started  up,  and  beheld 
a  figure  standing  over  him.  His  eyes  were  still  feeble,  and 
his  vision  indistinct ;  he  rubbed  them  for  a  time,  for  he 
first  thought  it  was  the  bear  Johannes,  and  again,  that  it  was 
the  supercargo  Von  Stroom,  who  had  appeared  before  him  ; 
he  looked  again,  and  found  that  he  was  mistaken,  although 
he  had  warrant  for  supposing  it  to  be  either,  or  both.  A  tall 
Hottentot,  with  an  assegai  in  his  hand,  stood  by  his  side  ; 
over  his  shoulders  he  had  thrown  the  fresh-severed  skin  of 
the  poor  bear,  and  on  his  head,  with  the  curls  descending  to 
his  waist,  was  one  of  the  wigs  of  the  supercargo  Von  Stroom. 
Such  was  the  gravity  of  the  black's  appearance  in  this  strange 
costume  (for  in  every  other  respect  he  was  naked),  that  at 
93 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

any  other  time  Philip  would  have  been  induced  to  laugh 
heartily  ;  but  his  feelings  were  now  too  acute.  He  rose  upon 
his  feet  and  stood  by  the  side  of  the  Hottentot,  who  still 
continued  immovable,  but  certainly  without  the  slightest 
appearance  of  hostile  intentions. 

A  sensation  of  overpowering  thirst  now  seized  upon  Philip, 
and  he  made  signs  that  he  wished  to  drink.  The  Hottentot 
motioned  to  him  to  follow,  and  led  over  the  sandhills  to  the 
beach,  where  Philip  discovered  upwards  of  fifty  men,  who 
were  busy  selecting  various  articles  from  the  scattered  stores 
of  the  vessel.  It  was  evident  by  the  respect  paid  to  Philip's 
conductor,  that  he  was  the  chief  of  the  kraal.  A  few  words, 
uttered  with  the  greatest  solemnity,  were  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce, though  not  exactly  what  Philip  required,  a  small 
quantity  of  dirty  water  from  a  calabash,  Avhich,  however, 
was  to  him  delicious.  His  conductor  then  waved  to  him  to 
take  a  seat  on  the  sand. 

It  was  a  novel  and  appalling,  and,  nevertheless,  a  ludicrous 
scene  :  there  was  the  white  sand,  rendered  still  more  white  by 
the  strong  glare  of  the  sun,  strewed  with  the  fragments  of  the 
vessel,  with  casks,  and  bales  of  merchandise ;  there  was  the 
running  surge  with  its  foam,  throwing  about  particles  of  the 
wreck  ;  there  were  the  bones  of  whales  which  had  been  driven 
on  shore  in  some  former  gale,  and  which,  now  half-buried  in 
the  sand,  showed  portions  of  huge  skeletons  ;  there  were  the 
mangled  bodies  of  Philip's  late  companions,  whose  clothes,  it 
appeared,  had  been  untouched  by  the  savages,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  buttons,  which  had  been  eagerly  sought  after ; 
there  were  naked  Hottentots  (for  it  was  summer  time,  and 
they  wore  not  their  sheepskin  krosses)  gravely  stepping  up 
and  down  the  sand,  picking  up  everything  that  was  of  no 
value,  and  leaving  all  that  civilised  people  most  coveted ; — 
to  crown  all,  there  was  the  chief,  sitting  in  the  still  bloody 
skin  of  Johannes,  and  the  broad-bottomed  wig  of  Mynheer 
Stroom,  with  all  the  gravity  of  a  vice-chancellor  in  his  coun- 
tenance, and  without  the  slightest  idea  that  he  was  in  any 
way  ridiculous.  The  whole  presented,  perhaps,  one  of  the 
most  strange  and  chaotic  tableaux  that  ever  was  witnessed. 

Although,  at  that  time,  the  Dutch  had  not  very  long  formed 
their  settlement  at  the  Cape,  a  considerable  traffic  had  been 
for  many  years  carried  on  with  the  natives  for  skins  and  other 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

African  productions.  The  Hottentots  were,  therefore,  no 
strangers  to  vessels,  and  as  hitherto  they  had  been  treated 
with  kindness,  were  well-disposed  towards  Europeans.  After 
a  time  the  Hottentots  began  to  collect  all  the  wood  which 
appeared  to  have  iron  in  it,  made  it  up  into  several  piles,  and 
set  them  on  fire.  The  chief  then  made  a  sign  to  Philip,  to 
ask  him  if  he  was  hungry  ;  Philip  replied  in  the  affirmative, 
when  his  new  acquaintance  put  his  hand  into  a  bag  made  of 
goat-skin,  and  pulled  out  a  handful  of  very  large  beetles,  and 
presented  them  to  him.  Philip  refused  them  with  marks  of 
disgust,  upon  which  the  chief  very  sedately  cracked  and  ate 
them  ;  and  having  finished  the  whole  handful,  rose,  and  made 
a  sign  to  Philip  to  follow  him.  As  Philip  rose,  he  perceived, 
floating  on  the  surf,  his  own  chest ;  he  hastened  to  it,  and 
made  signs  that  it  was  his,  took  the  key  out  of  his  pocket  and 
opened  it,  and  then  made  up  a  bundle  of  articles  most  useful, 
not  forgetting  a  bag  of  guilders.  His  conductor  made  no 
objection,  but  calling  to  one  of  the  men  near,  pointed  «ut 
the  lock  and  hinges  to  him,  and  then  set  off,  followed  by 
Philip,  across  the  sandhills.  In  about  an  hour  they  arrived 
at  the  kraal,  consisting  of  Jow  huts  covered  with  skins,  and 
were  met  by  the  women  and  children,  uho  appeared  to  be 
in  high  admiration  at  their  chief's  new  attire  :  they  showed 
every  kindness  to  Philip,  bringing  him  milk,  which  he  drank 
eagerly.  Philip  surveyed  these  daughters  of 'Eve,  and,  as 
he  turned  from  their  offensive,  greasy  attire,  their  strange 
forms,  and  hideous  features,  he  sighed,  and  thought  of  his 
charming  Amine. 

The  sun  was  now  setting,  and  Philip  still  felt  fatigued.  He 
made  signs  that  he  wished  to  repose.  They  led  him  into  a 
hut,  and,  though  surrounded  as  he  was  with  filth,  and  his 
nose  assailed  by  every  variety  of  bad  smell,  attacked,  moreover, 
by  insects,  he  laid  his  head  on  his  bundle,  and  uttering  a  short 
prayer  of  thanksgiving,  was  soon  in  a  sound  sleep. 

The  next  morning  he  was  awakened  by  the  chief  of  the 
kraal,  accompanied  by  another  man  who  spoke  a  little  Dutch. 
He  stated  his  wish  to  be  taken  to  the  settlement  where  the 
ships  came  and  anchored,  and  was  fully  understood  ;  but  the 
man  said  that  there  were  no  ships  in  the  bay  at  the  time. 
Philip,  nevertheless,  requested  he  might  be  taken  there,  as 
he  felt  that  his  best  chance  of  getting  on  board  of  any  vessel 
95 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

would  be  by  remaining  at  the  settlement,  and,  at  all  events, 
he  would  be  in  the  company  of  Europeans,  until  a  vessel 
arrived.  The  distance,  he  discovered,  was  but  one  day's 
march,  or  less.  After  some  little  conversation  with  the  chief, 
the  man  who  spoke  Dutch  desired  Philip  to  follow  him,  and 
he  would  take  him  there.  Philip  drank  plentifully  from  a 
bowl  of  milk,  brought  him  by  one  of  the  M'omen,  and  again 
refusing  a  handful  of  beetles  offered  by  the  chief,  he  took 
up  his  bundle  and  followed  his  new  acquaintance. 

Towards  evening  they  arrived  at  the  hills,  from  which 
Philip  had  a  view  of  Table  Bay,  and  the  few  houses  erected 
by  the  Dutch.  To  his  delight,  he  perceived  that  there 
was  a  vessel  under  sail  in  the  offing.  On  his  arrival  at  the 
beach,  to  which  he  hastened,  he  found  that  she  had  sent  a 
boat  on  shore  for  fresh  provisions.  He  accosted  the  people, 
told  them  who  he  was,  told  them  also  of  the  fatal  wreck  of 
the  Ter  Schilling,  and  of  his  wish  to  embark. 

The  officer  in  charge  of  the  boat  willingly  consented  to 
take  him  on  board,  and  informed  Philip  that  they  were 
homeward  bound.  Philip's  heart  leaped  at  the  intelligence. 
Had  she  been  outward  bound,  lje  would  have  joined  her; 
but  now  he  had  a  prospect  of  again  seeing  his  dear  Amine 
before  he  re-embarked  to  follow  out  his  peculiar  destiny. 
He  felt  that  there  was  still  some  happiness  in  store  for  him, 
that  his  life  was  to  be  chequered  with  alternate  privation 
and  repose,  and  that  his  future  prospect  was  not  to  be  one 
continued  chain  of  suffering  until  death. 

He  was  kindly  received  by  the  captain  of  the  vessel, 
who  freely  gave  him  a  passage  home ;  and  in  three  months, 
without  any  events  worth  narrating,  Philip  Vanderdecken 
focnd  himself  once  more  at  anchor  before  the  town  of 
Amsterdam. 


CHAPTER  XI 

IT  need  hardly  be  observed  that  Philip  made  all  possible 
haste  to  his  own  little  cottage,  which  contained  all  that  he 
valued  in  this  world.  He  promised  to  himself  some  months 
of  happiness,  for  he  had  done  his  duty  ;  and  he  felt  that, 
however  desirous  of  fulfilling  his  vow,  he  could  not 
96 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

leave  home  till  the  autumn,  when  the  next  fleet  sailed,  and 
it  was  now  but  the  commencement  of  April.  Much,  too, 
as  he  regretted  the  loss  of  Mynheer  Kloots  and  Hillebrant, 
as  well  as  the  deaths  of  the  unfortunate  crew,  still  there 
was  some  solace  in  the  remembrance  that  he  was  for  ever 
rid  of  the  wretch  Schriften,  who  had  shared  their  fate ;  and 
besides,  he  almost  blessed  the  wreck,  so  fatal  to  others, 
which  enabled  him  so*  soon  to  return  to  the  arms  of  his 
Amine. 

It  was  late  in  the  evening  when  Philip  took  a  boat  from 
Flushing,  and  went  over  to  his  cottage  at  Terneuse.  It  was 
a  rough  evening  for  the  season  of  the  year.  The  wind  blew 
fresh,  and  the  sky  was  covered  with  flaky  clouds,  fringed 
here  and  there  with  broad  white  edges,  for  the  light  of  the 
moon  was  high  in  the  heavens,  and  she  was  at  her  full.  At 
times  her  light  would  be  almost  obscured  by  a  dark  cloud 
passing  over  her  disc  ;  at  others,  she  would  burst  out  in  ;ill 
her  brightness.  Philip  landed,  and,  wrapping  his  cloak 
round  him,  hastened  up  to  his  cottage.  As  with  a  beating 
heart  he  approached,  he  perceived  that  the  window  of  the 
parlour  was  open,  and  that  there  was  a  female  figure  leaning 
out.  He  knew  that  it  could  be  no  other  than  his  Amine, 
and  after  he  crossed  the  little  bridge  he  proceeded  to  the 
window,  instead  of  going  to  the  door.  Amine  (for  it  was 
she  who  stood  at  the  window)  was  so  absorbed  in  contem- 
plation of  the  heavens  above  her,  and  so  deep  in  communion 
with  her  own  thoughts,  that  she  neither  saw  nor  heard  the 
approach  of  her  husband.  Philip  perceived  her  abstraction, 
and  paused  when  within  four  or  five  yards  of  her.  He 
wished  to  gain  the  door  without  being  observed,  as  he  was 
afraid  of  alarming  her  by  his  too  sudden  appearance,  for  he 
remembered  his  promise,  "  that  if  dead  he  would,  if  per- 
mitted, visit  her  as  his  father  had  visited  his  mother."  But 
while  he  thus  stood  in  suspense,  Amine's  eyes  were  turned 
upon  him  :  she  beheld  him ;  but  a  thick  cloud  now  obscured 
the  moon's  disc,  and  the  dim  light  gave  to  his  form,  indis- 
tinctly seen,  an  unearthly  and  shadowy  appearance.  She 
recognised  her  husband ;  but  having  no  reason  to  expect 
his  return,  she  recognised  him  as  an  inhabitant  of  the  world 
of  spirits.  She  started,  parted  the  hair  away  from  her  fore- 
head with  both  hands,  and  again  earnestly  gazed  on  him. 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

«It  is  I,  Amine ;  do  not  be  afraid,"  cried  Philip  hastily. 

"I  am  not  afraid,"  replied  Amine,  pressing  her  hand  to  her 
heart.  "  It  is  over  now.  Spirit  of  my  dear  husband — for  such 
I  think  thou  art — I  thank  thee  !  Welcome,  even  in  death, 
Philip — welcome  !  "  and  Amine  waved  her  hand  mournfully, 
inviting  Philip  to  enter  as  she  retired  from  the  window. 

"  My  God  !  she  thinks  me  dead,"  thought  Philip,  and, 
hardly  knowing  how  to  act,  he  entered  in  at  the  window, 
and  found  her  sitting  on  the  sofa.  Philip  would  have  spoken, 
but  Amine,  whose  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him  as  he  entered, 
and  who  was  fully  convinced  that  he  was  but  a  supernatural 
appearance,  exclaimed — 

"  So  soon — so  soon  !  O  God  !  Thy  will  be  done  :  but  it  is 
hard  to  bear.  Philip,  beloved  Philip,  I  feel  that  I  soon  shall 
follow  you." 

Philip  was  now  more  alarmed;  he  was  fearful  of  any  sudden 
reaction  when  Amine  should  discover  that  he  was  still  alive. 

"  Amine,  dear,  hear  me.  I  have  appeared  unexpectedly, 
and  at  an  unusual  hour  ;  but  throw  yourself  into  my  arms, 
and  you  will  find  that  your  Philip  is  not  dead." 

"  Not  dead  !  "  cried  Amine,  starting  up. 

"  No,  no,  still  warm  in  flesh  and  blood,  Amine — still  your 
fond  and  doting  husband,"  replied  Philip,  catching  her  in  his 
arms  and  pressing  her  to  his  heart. 

Amine  sank  from  his  embrace  down  upon  the  sofa,  and 
fortunately  was  relieved  by  a  burst  of  tears,  while  Philip, 
kneeling  by  her,  supported  her. 

"  O  God !  ()  God  !  I  thank  Thee,"  replied  Amine  at  last. 
"  I  thought  it  was  your  spirit,  Philip.  Oh !  I  was  glad  to  see 
even  that,"  continued  she,  weeping  on  his  shoulder. 

"  Can  you  listen  to  me,  dearest  ? "  said  Philip,  after  a 
silence  of  a  few  moments. 

"  Oh  speak — speak,  love  ;  I  can  listen  for  ever." 

In  a  few  words  Philip  then  recounted  what  had  taken 
place,  and  the  occasion  of  his  unexpected  return,  and  felt 
himself  more  than  repaid  for  all  that  he  had  suffered,  by  the 
fond  endearments  of  his  still  agitated  Amine. 

"  And  your  father,  Amine  ?  " 

"  He  is  well ;  we  will  talk  of  him  to-morrow." 

"Yes,"  thought  Philip,  as  he  awoke  next  morning,  and 
dwelt  upon  the  lovely  features  of  his  still  slumbering  wife ; 
98 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

**yes;  God  is  merciful.  I  feel  that  there  is  still  happiness  in 
store  for  me ;  nay,  more,  that  that  happiness  also  depends 
upon  my  due  performance  of  my  task,  and  that  I  should  be 
punished  if  I  were  to  forget  my  solemn  vow.  Be  it  so — • 
through  danger  and  to  death  will  I  perform  my  duty,  trusting 
to  His  mercy  for  a  reward  both  here  below  and  in  heaven 
above.  Am  I  not  repaid  for  all  that  I  have  suffered  ?  Oh  yes, 
more  than  repaid,"  thought  Philip,  as  with  a  kiss  he  disturbed 
the  slumber  of  his  wife,  and  met  her  full  dark  eyes  fixed  upon 
him,  beaming  with  love  and  joy. 

Before  Philip  went  downstairs,  he  inquired  about  Mynheer 
Poots. 

"  My  father  has  indeed  troubled  me  much.,"  replied  Amine. 
"  I  am  obliged  to  lock  the  parlour  when  I  leave  it,  for  more 
than  once  I  have  found  him  attempting  to  force  the  locks  of 
the  buffets.  His  love  of  gold  is  insatiable  :  he  dreams  of 
nothing  else.  He  has  caused  me  much  pain,  insisting  that  I 
never  should  see  you  again,  and  that  I  should  surrender  to 
him  all  your  wealth.  But  he  fears  me,  and  he  fears  your 
return  much  more." 

"Is  he  welt  in  health?" 

"Not  ill,  but  still  evidently  wasting  away — like  a  candle 
burnt  down  to  the  socket,  flitting  and  flaring  alternately  ;  at 
one  time  almost  imbecile,  at  others,  talking  and  planning  as 
if  he  were  in  the  vigour  of  his  youth.  Oh,  what  a  curse  it 
must  be  —  that  love  of  money!  I  believe — I'm  shocked  to 
say  so,  Philip — that  that  poor  old  man,  now  on  the  brink  of 
a  grave  into  which  he  can  take  nothing,  would  sacrifice  your 
life  and  mine  to  have  possession  of  those  guilders,  the  whole 
of  which  I  would  barter  for  one  kiss  from  thee." 

"  Indeed,  Amine,  has  he  then  attempted  anything  in  my 
absence  ?  " 

"  I  dare  not  speak  my  thoughts,  Philip,  nor  will  I  venture 
upon  surmises,  which  it  were  difficult  to  prove.  I  watch  him 
carefully ; — but  talk  no  more  about  him.  You  will  see  him 
soon,  and  do  not  expect  a  hearty  welcome,  or  believe  that,  if 
given,  it  is  sincere.  I  will  not  tell  him  of  your  return,  as  I 
wish  to  mark  the  effect." 

Amine   then  descended  to  prepare  breakfast,   and   Philip 
walked  out  for  a  few  minutes.      On   his  return   he    found 
Mynheer  Poots  sitting  at  the  table  with  his  daughter. 
99 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"Merciful  Allah!  am  I  right?"  cried  the  old  man;  "is 
it  you,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken  ?  " 

"Even  so/'  replied  Philip;  "I  returned  last  night" 

"And  you  did  not  tell  me,  Amine." 

"  I  wished  that  you  should  be  surprised,"  replied  Amine. 

"  I  am  surprised  !  When  do  you  sail  again,  Mynheer 
Philip  ?  very  soon,  I  suppose  ?  perhaps  to-morrow  ?  "  said  Myn- 
heer Pools. 

"Not  for  many  months,  I  trust,"  replied  Philip. 

"  Not  for  many  months  ? — that  is  a  long  while  to  be  idle. 
You  must  make  money.  Tell  me,  have  you  brought  back 
plenty  this  time  ?  " 

"  No,"  replied  Philip ;  "  I  have  been  wrecked,  and  very 
nearly  lost  my  life." 

"  But  you  will  go  again  ?  " 

"  Yes,  in  good  time  I  shall  go  again." 

"Very  well,  we  will  take  care  of  your  house  and  your 
guilders." 

"  I  shall  perhaps  save  you  the  trouble  of  taking  care  of  my 
guilders,"  replied  Philip,  to  annoy  the  old  man,  "for  I  mean 
to  take  them  with  me." 

"  To  take  them  with  you  !  for  what,  pray  ?  "  replied  Pools, 
in  alarm. 

"  To  purchase  goods  where  I  go,  and  make  more  money." 

"  But  you  may  be  wrecked  again,  and  then  the  money  will 
be  all  lost.  No,  no;  go  yourself,  Mynheer  Philip;  but  you 
must  not  take  your  guilders." 

"  Indeed  I  will,"  replied  Philip ;  "  when  I  leave  this  I 
shall  take  all  my  money  with  me." 

During  this  conversation  it  occurred  to  Philip  that,  if 
Mynheer  Pools  could  only  be  led  lo  suppose  that  he  look 
away  his  money  with  him,  there  would  be  more  quiet  for 
Amine,  who  was  now  obliged,  as  she  had  informed  him,  to  be 
constantly  on  the  watch.  He  determined,  therefore,  when 
he  next  departed,  to  make  the  doclor  believe  that  he  had 
taken  his  wealth  with  him. 

Mynheer  Pools  did  nol  renew  Ihe  conversalion,  but  sank 
into  gloomy  thought.  In  a  few  minutes  he  left  the  parlour, 
and  went  up  to  his  own  room,  when  Philip  stated  to  his  wife 
what  had  induced  him  to  make  the  old  man  believe  that  he 
should  embark  his  property. 

100 


THE.  PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  It  was  thoughtful  of  you,  Philip,  and  I  thank  you  for  your 
kind  feeling  towards  me;  but  I  wish  you  had  said  nothing 
on  the  subject.  You  do  not  know  my  father;  I  must  now 
watch  him  as  an  enemy." 

"We  have  little  to  fear  from  an  infirm  old  man,"  replied 
Philip,  laughing.  But  Amine  thought  otherwise,  and  was 
ever  on  her  guard. 

The  spring  and  summer  passed  rapidly  away,  for  they  were 
happy.  Many  were  the  conversations  between  Philip  and 
Amine  relative  to  what  had  passed —  the  supernatural  appear- 
ance of  his  father's  ship,  and  the  fatal  wreck. 

Amine  felt  that  more  dangers  and  difficulties  were  pre- 
paring for  her  husband,  but  she  never  once  attempted  to 
dissuade  him  from  renewing  his  attempts  in  fulfilment  of  his 
vow.  Like  him,  she  looked  forward  with  hope  and  confidence, 
aware  that,  at  some  time,  his  fate  must  be  accomplished,  and 
trusting  only  that  that  hour  would  be  long  delayed. 

At  the  close  of  the  summer,  Philip  again  went  to  Amsterdam,, 
to  procure  for  himself  a  berth  in  one  of  the  vessels  which 
were  to  sail  at  the  approach  of  winter. 

The  wreck  of  the  Ter  Schilling  was  well  known  ;  and  the 
circumstances  attending  it,  with  the  exception  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  Phantom  Ship,  had  been  drawn  up  by  Philip 
on  his  passage  home,  and  communicated  to  the  Court  of 
Directors.  Not  only  on  account  of  the  very  creditable 
manner  in  which  that  report  had  been  prepared,  but  in 
consideration  of  his  peculiar  sufferings  and  escape,  he  had 
been  promised  by  the  Company  a  berth,  as  second  mate, 
on  board  of  one  of  their  vessels,  should  he  be  again  inclined 
to  sail  to  the  East  Indies. 

Having  called  upon  the  directors,  he  received  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  Batavia,  a  fine  vessel  of  about  400  tons  burden. 
Having  effected  his  purpose,  Philip  hastened  back  to  Terneuse, 
and  in  the  presence  of  Mynheer  Poots,  informed  Amine  of 
what  he  had  done. 

"So  you  go  to  sea  again  ?  "  observed  Mynheer  Poots. 

"  Yes,  but  not  for  two  months,  I  expect,"  replied  Philip. 

"  Ah  !  "  replied  Poots,  "  in  two  months  !  "  and  the  old  man 
muttered  to  himself. 

How  true  it  is  that  we  can  more  easily  bear  up  against  a 
real  evil  than  against  suspense  !  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that 
101 


THE   PHANTOM -SHIP 

Amine  fretted  at  the  thought  of  her  approaching  separation 
from  her  husband ;  she  lamented  it,  but  feeling  his  departure 
to  be  an  imperious  duty,  and  having  it  ever  in  her  mind,  she 
bore  up  against  her  feelings,  and  submitted  without  repining 
to  what  could  not  be  averted.  There  was,  however,  one  cir- 
cumstance which  caused  her  much  uneasiness — that  was  the 
temper  and  conduct  of  her  father.  Amine,  who  knew  his 
character  well,  perceived  that  he  already  secretly  hated 
Philip,  whom  he  regarded  as  an  obstacle  to  his  obtaining 
possession  of  the  money  in  the  house;  for  the  old  man  was 
well  aware  that,  if  Philip  were  dead,  his  daughter  would 
care  little  who  had  possession  of,  or  what  became  of  it.  The 
thought  that  Philip  was  about  to  take  that  money  with  him 
had  almost  turned  the  brain  of  the  avaricious  old  man.  He 
had  been  watched  by  Amine,  and  she  had  seen  him  walk 
for  hours  muttering  to  himself,  and  not,  as  usual,  attending 
to  his  profession. 

A  few  evenings  after  his  return  from  Amsterdam,  Philip, 
who  had  taken  cold,  complained  of  not  being  well. 

"  Not  well  !  "  cried  the  old  man,  starting  up  ;  "  let  me  see 
— yes,  your  pulse  is  very  quick.  Amine,  your  poor  husband 
is  very  ill.  He  must  go  to  bed,  and  I  will  give  him  some- 
thing which  will  do  him  good.  I  shall  charge  you  nothing, 
Philip — nothing  at  all." 

"  1  do  not  feel  so  very  unwell,  Mynheer  Foots,"  replied 
Philip  ;  "  I  have  had  a  bad  headache  certainly." 

"  Yes,  and  you  have  fever  also,  Philip,  and  prevention  is 
better  than  cure  ;  so  go  to  bed,  and  take  what  I  send  you, 
and  you  will  be  well  to-morrow." 

Philip  went  upstairs  accompanied  by  Amine  ;  and  Mynheer 
Poots  went  into  his  own  room  to  prepare  the  medicine.  So 
soon  as  Philip  was  in  bed  Amine  went  downstairs,  and  was 
met  by  her  father,  who  put  a  powder  into  her  hands  to  give 
to  her  husband,  and  then  left  the  parlour. 

"God  forgive  me  if  I  wrong  my  father,"  thought  Amine; 
"but  I  have  my  doubts.  Philip  is  ill,  more  so  than  he  will 
acknowledge ;  and  if  he  does  not  take  some  remedies  he 
may  be  worse— but  my  heart  misgives  me — I  have  .a  fore- 
boding. Yet  surely  he  cannot  be  so  diabolically  wicked." 

Amine  examined  the  contents  of  the  paper  :  it  was  a  very 
small  quantity  of  dark  brown  powder,  and  by  the  directions 
102 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

of  Mynheer  Foots,  to  be  given  in  a  tumbler  of  warm  wine. 
Mynheer  Foots  had  offered  to  heat  the  wine.  His  return 
from  the  kitchen  broke  Amine's  meditations. 

"  Here  is  the  wine,  my  child ;  now  give  him  a  whole 
tumbler  of  wine,  and  the  powder,  and  let  him  be  covered  up 
warm,  for  the  perspiration  will  soon  burst  out,  and  it  must 
not  be  checked.  Watch  him,  Amine,  and  keep  the  clothes 
on,  and  he  will  be  well  to-morrow  morning."  And  Mynheer 
Foots  quitted  the  room,  saying,  "Good  night,  my  child." 

Amine  poured  out  the  powder  into  one  of  the  silver  mugs 
upon  the  table,  and  then  proceeded  to  mix  it  up  with  the 
wine.  Her  suspicions  had,  for  the  time,  been  removed  by 
the  kind  tone  of  her  father's  voice.  To  do  him  justice  as  a 
medical  practitioner,  he  appeared  always  to  be  most  careful  of 
his  patients.  When  Amine  mixed  the  powder,  she  examined 
and  perceived  that  there  was  no  sediment,  and  the  wine  was 
as  clear  as  before.  This  was  unusual,  and  her  suspicions 
revived. 

*'I  like  it  not,"  said  she;  "I  fear  my  father — God  help 
me  ! — I  hardly  know  what  to  do — I  will  not  give  it  to  Philip. 
The  warm  wine  may  produce  perspiration  sufficient." 

Amine  paused,  and  again  reflected.  She  had  mixed  the 
powder  with  so  small  a  portion  of  wine  that  it  did  not  fill  a 
quarter  of  the  cup ;  she  put  it  on  one  side,  filled  another  up 
to  the  brim  with  the  warm  wine,  and  then  went  up  to  the 
bedroom. 

On  the  landing-place  she  was  met  by  her  father,  whom 
she  supposed  to  have  retired  to  rest. 

"Take  care  you  do  not  spill  it,  Amine.  That  is  right,  let 
him  have  a  whole  cupful.  Stop,  give  it  to  me ;  I  will  take  it 
to  him  myself." 

Mynheer  Foots  took  the  cup  from  Amine's  hands,  and  went 
into  Philip's  room. 

"  Here,  my  son,  drink  this  off,  and  you  will  be  well,"  said 
Mynheer  Foots,  whose  hand  trembled  so  that  he  spilt  the 
wine  on  the  coverlet.  Amine,  who  watched  her  father,  was 
more  than  ever  pleased  that  she  had  not  put  the  powder  into 
the  cup.  Philip  rose  on  his  elbow,  drank  off  the  wine,  and 
Mynheer  Foots  then  wished  him  good  night. 

"  Do  not  leave  him,  Amine ;  I  will  see  all  right,"  said 
Mynheer  Foots,  as  he  left  the  room.  And  Amine,  who  had 
103 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

intended  to  go  down  for  the  candle  left  in  the  parlour,  re 
mained  with  her  husband,  to  whom  she  confided  her  feelings, 
and  also  the  fact  that  she  had  not  given  him  the  powder. 

"  I  trust  that  you  are  mistaken,  Amine,"  replied  Philip ; 
"  indeed,  I  feel  sure  that  you  must  be.  No  man  can  be  so 
bad  as  you  suppose  your  father." 

"You  have  not  lived  with  him  as  I  have;  you  have  not  seen 
what  I  have  seen,"  replied  Amine.  "You  know  not  what  gold 
will  tempt  people  to  do  in  this  world— but,  however,  I  may  be 
wrong.  At  all  events,  you  must  go  to  sleep,  and  I  shall  watch 
you,  dearest.  Pray,  do  not  speak — I  feel  I  cannot  sleep  just 
now— I  wish  to  read  a  little — I  will  lie  down  by-and-by." 

Philip  made  no  further  objections,  and  was  soon  in  a 
sound  sleep,  and  Amine  watched  him  in  silence  till  midnight 
long  had  passed. 

"  He  breathes  heavily,"  thought  Amine  ;  "but  had  I  given 
him  that  powder,  who  knows  if  he  had  ever  awoke  again  ? 
My  father  is  so  deeply  skilled  in  the  Eastern  knowledge,  ^iat 
1  fear  him.  Too  often  has  he,  I  well  know,  for  a  purse  well 
filled  with  gold,  prepared  the  sleep  of  death.  Another  would 
shudder  at  the  thought ;  but  he,  who  has  dealt  out  death  at 
the  will  of  his  employers,  would  scruple  little  to  do  so  even 
to  the  husband  of  his  own  daughter ;  and  I  have  watched 
him  in  his  moods,  and  know  his  thoughts  and  wishes.  What 
a  foreboding  of  mishap  has  come  over  me  this  evening !  what 
a  fear  of  evil !  Philip  is  ill,  'tis  true,  but  not  so  very  ill. 
No !  no !  besides,  his  time  is  not  yet  come ;  he  has  his 
dreadful  task  to  finish.  I  would  it  were  morning.  How 
soundly  he  sleeps  !  and  the  dew  is  on  his  brow.  I  must 
cover  him  up  warm,  and  watch  that  he  remains  so.  Some 
one  knocks  at  the  entrance-door.  Now  will  they  wake  him. 
'Tis  a  summons  for  my  father." 

Amine  left  the  room,  and  hastened  downstairs.  It  was,  as 
she  supposed,  a  summons  for  Mynheer  Poots  to  a  woman 
taken  in  labour. 

"  He  shall  follow  you  directly,"  said  Amine  ;  "  I  will  now 
call  him  up."  Amine  went  upstairs  to  the  room  where  her 
father  slept,  and  knocked ;  hearing  no  answer  as  usual,  she 
knocked  again. 

"  My  father  is  not  used  to  sleep  in  this  way,"  thought 
Amine,  when  she  found  no  answer  to  her  second  call.     She 
104 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

opened  the  door  and  went  in.  To  her  surprise,  her  father  was 
not  in  bed.  "  Strange,"  thought  she  ;  "  but  I  do  not  recollect 
having  heard  his  footsteps  coming  up  after  he  went  down  to 
take  away  the  lights."  And  Amine  hastened  to  the  parlour, 
where,  stretched  on  the  sofa,  she  discovered  her  father  ap- 
parently fast  asleep;  but  to  her  call  he  gave  no  answer. 
"  Merciful  Heaven  !  is  he  dead  ?  "  thought  she,  approaching 
the  light  to  her  father's  face.  Yes,  it  was  so ;  his  eyes  were 
fixed  and  glazed — his  lower  jaw  had  fallen. 

For  some  minutes  Amine  leant  against  the  wall  in  a  state  of 
bewilderment;  her  brain  whirled;  at  last  she  recovered  herself. 

"  'Tis  to  be  proved  at  once,"  thought  she,  as  she  went  up  to 
the  table,  and  looked  into  the  silver  cup  in  which  she  had 
mixed  the  powder — it  was  empty  !  "  The  God  of  Righteous- 
ness hath  punished  him  !  "  exclaimed  Amine  ;  "  but,  oh  !  that 
this  man  should  have  been  my  father !  Yes ;  it  is  plain. 
Frightened  at  his  own  wicked,  damned  intentions,  he  poured 
out  more  wine  from  the  flagon,  to  blunt  his  feelings  of 
remorse;  and  not  knowing  that  the  powder  was  still  in  the 
cup,  he  filled  it  up  and  drank  himself — the  death  he  meant 
for  another  !  For  another  !  and  for  whom  ?  one  wedded  to  his 
own  daughter — Philip!  my  husband!  Wert  thou  not  my 
father,"  continued  Amine,  looking  at  the  dead  body,  "  I  would 
spit  upon  thee,  and  curse  thee  !  but  thou  art  punished,  and 
may  God  forgive  thee  !  thou  poor,  weak,  wicked  creature  !  " 

Amine  then  left  the  room  and  went  upstairs,  when  she  found 
Philip  still  fast  asleep,  and  in  a  profuse  perspiration. 

Most  women  would  have  awakened  their  husbands,  but 
Amine  thought  not  of  herself ;  Philip  was  ill,  and  Amine  would 
not  arouse  him  to  agitate  him.  She  sat  down  by  the  side  of 
the  bed,  and  with  her  hands  pressed  upon  her  forehead,  and 
her  elbows  resting  on  her  knees,  she  remained  in  deep  thought 
until  the  sun  had  risen  and  poured  his  bright  beams  through 
the  casement. 

She  was  roused  from  her  reflections  by  another  summons  at 
the  door  of  the  cottage.  She  hastened  down  to  the  entrance, 
but  did  not  open  the  door. 

"Mynheer  Poots  is  required  immediately,"  said  the  girl,  who 
was  the  messenger. 

"My  good  Therese,"  replied  Amine,  "my  father  has  more 
need  of  assistance  than  the  poor  woman ;  for  his  travail  in  this 
105 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

world,  I  fear,  is  well  over.  I  found  him  very  ill  when  I  went 
to  call  him,  and  he  has  not  been  able  to  quit  his  bed.  I  must 
now  entreat  you  to  do  my  message,  and  desire  Father  Seysen 
to  come  hither ;  for  my  poor  father  is,  I  fear,  in  extremity." 

"  Mercy  on  me  !  "  replied  Therese.  "  Is  it  so  ?  Fear  not 
but  I  will  do  your  bidding,  Mistress  Amine." 

The  second  knocking  had  awakened  Philip,  who  felt  that 
he  was  much  better,  and  his  headache  had  left  him.  He 
perceived  that  Amine  had  not  taken  any  rest  that  night, 
and  he  was  about  to  expostulate  with  her,  when  she  at  once 
told  him  what  had  occurred. 

"  You  must  dress  yourself,  Philip,"  continued  she,  "  and 
must  assist  me  to  carry  up  his  body,  and  place  it  in  his  bed, 
before  the  arrival  of  the  priest.  God  of  mercy  !  had  I  given 
you  that  powder,  my  dearest  Philip — but  let  us  not  talk 
about  it.  Be  quick,  for  Father  Seysen  will  be  here  soon." 

Philip  was  soon  dressed,  and  followed  Amine  down  into 
the  parlour.  The  sun  shone  bright,  and  his  rays  were  darted 
upon  the  haggard  face  of  the  old  man,  whose  fists  were 
clenched,  and  his  tongue  fixed  between  the  teeth  on  one 
side  of  his  mouth. 

"  Alas  !  this  room  appears  to  be  fatal.  How  many  more 
scenes  of  horror  are  to  pass  within  it  ?  " 

"  None,  I  trust,"  replied  Amine  ;  "  this  is  not,  to  my  mind, 
the  scene  of  horror.  It  was  when  that  old  man  (now  called 
away — and  a  victim  of  his  own  treachery)  stood  by  your  bed- 
side, and  with  every  mark  of  interest  and  kindness  offered 
you  the  cup — that  was  the  scene  of  horror,"  said  Amine, 
shuddering — "one  which  long  will  haunt  me." 

"God  forgive  him  !  as  I  do,"  replied  Philip,  lifting  up  the 
body,  and  carrying  it  up  the  stairs  to  the  room  which  had 
been  occupied  by  Mynheer  Poots. 

"  Let  it  at  least  be  supposed  that  he  died  in  his  bed,  and 
that  his  death  was  natural,"  said  Amine.  "  My  pride  cannot 
bear  that  this  should  be  known,  or  that  I  should  be  pointed 
at  AS  the  daughter  of  a  murderer  !  O  Philip  i" 

Amine  sat  down  and  burst  into  tears. 

Her  husband  was  attempting  to  console  her,  when  Father 
Seysen  knocked  at  the  door.  Philip  hastened  down  to 
open  it. 

"  Good  morning,  my  son.     How  is  the  sufferer  ?  " 
106 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  He  has  ceased  to  suffer,  father." 

"  Indeed  !  "  replied  the  good  priest,  with  sorrow  in  his 
countenance  ;  "  am  I  then  too  late  ?  yet  have  I  not  tarried." 

"  He  went  off  suddenly,  father,  in  a  convulsion,"  replied 
Philip,  leading  the  way  upstairs. 

Father  Seysen  looked  at  the  body  and  perceived  that  his 
offices  were  needless,  and  then  turned  to  Amine,  who  had 
not  yet  checked  her  tears. 

"  Weep,  my  child,  weep  !  for  you  have  cause,"  said  the 
priest.  "  The  loss  of  a  father's  love  must  be  a  severe  trial  to 
a  dutiful  and  affectionate  child.  But  yield  not  too  much  to 
your  grief,  Amine ;  you  have  other  duties,  other  ties,  my 
child — you  have  your  husband." 

"  I  know  it,  father,"  replied  Amine ;  "  still  must  I  weep, 
for  I  was  his  daughter." 

"  Did  he  not  go  to  bed  last  night,  then,  that  his  clothes 
are  still  upon  him  ?  When  did  he  first  complain  ?  " 

"  The  last  time  that  I  saw  him,  father,"  replied  Philip,  "  he 
came  into  my  room,  and  gave  me  some  medicine,  and  then 
he  wished  me  good  night.  Upon  a  summons  to  attend  a  sick- 
bed, my  wife  went  to  call  him,  and  found  him  speechless." 

"  It  has  been  sudden,"  replied  the  priest ;  "  but  he  was 
an  old  man,  and  old  men  sink  at  once.  Were  you  with  him 
when  he  died  ?  " 

"  I  was  not,  sir,"  replied  Philip  ;  "  before  my  -wife  had  sum- 
moned me  and  I  had  dressed  myself,  he  had  left  this  world." 

"  I  trust,  my  children,  for  a  better."  Amine  shuddered. 
"Tell  me,  Amine,"  continued  the  priest,  "did  he  show 
signs  of  grace  before  he  died  ?  for  you  know  full  well  that 
he  has  long  been  looked  on  as  doubtful  in  his  creed,  and 
little  attentive  to  the  rites  of  our  holy  Church." 

"  There  are  times,  holy  father,"  replied  Amine,  "  when  even 
a  sincere  Christian  can  be  excused,  even  if  he  give  no  sign. 
Look  at  his  clenched  hands,  witness  the  agony  of  death  on 
his  face,  and  could  you,  in  that  state,  expect  a  sign  ?  " 

"  Alas  !  'tis  but  too  true,  my  child  ;  we  must  then  hope 
for  the  best.  Kneel  with  me,  my  children,  and  let  us  offer 
up  a  prayer  for  the  soul  of  the  departed." 

Philip   and    Amine    knelt    with    the    priest,    who    prayed 
fervently  ;  and  as  they  rose  they  exchanged  a  glance  which 
fully  revealed  what  was  passing  in  the  mind  of  each. 
107 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  I  will  send  the  people  to  do  their  offices  for  the  dead, 
and  prepare  the  body  for  interment,"  said  Father  Seysen ; 
"  but  it  were  as  well  not  to  say  that  he  was  dead  before  I 
arrived,  or  to  let  it  be  supposed  that  he  was  called  away 
without  receiving  the  consolations  of  our  holy  creed." 

Philip  motioned  his  head  in  assent  as  he  stood  at  the  foot 
of  the  bed,  and  the  priest  departed.  There  had  always  been 
a  strong  feeling  against  Mynheer  Poots  in  the  village  ;  his 
neglect  of  all  religious  duties ;  the  doubt  whether  he  was 
even  a  member  of  the  Church  ;  his  avarice  and  extortion — had 
created  for  him  a  host  of  enemies ;  but  at  the  same  time 
his  great  medical  skill,  which  was  fully  acknowledged,  ren- 
dered him  of  importance.  Mad  it  been  known  that  his  creed 
(if  he  had  any)  was  Mahometan,  and  that  he  had  died  in 
attempting  to  poison  his  son-in-law,  it  is  certain  that  Christian 
burial  would  have  been  refused  him,  and  the  finger  of  scorn 
would  have  been  pointed  at  his  daughter.  But  as  Father 
Seysen,  when  questioned,  said,  in  a  mild  voice,  that  "  he  had 
departed  in  peace,"  it  was  presumed  that  Mynheer  Poots 
had  died  a  good  Christian,  although  he  had  acted  little  up 
to  the  tenets  of  Christianity  during  his  life.  The  next  day 
the  remains  of  the  old  man  were  consigned  to  the  earth  with 
the  usual  rites;  and  Philip  and  Amine  were  not  a  little  relieved 
in  their  minds  at  everything  having  passed  off  so  quietly. 

It  was  not  until  after  the  funeral  had  taken  place  that  Philip, 
in  company  with  Amine,  examined  the  chamber  of  his  father- 
in-law.  The  key  of  the  iron  chest  was  found  in  his  pocket; 
but  Philip  had  not  yet  looked  into  this  darling  repository  of 
the  old  man.  The  room  was  full  of  bottles  and  boxes  of  drugs, 
all  of  which  were  either  thrown  away,  or,  if  the  utility  of  them 
was  known  to  Amine.  removed  to  a  spare  room.  His  table 
contained  many  drawers,  which  were  now  examined,  and 
among  the  heterogeneous  contents  were  many  writings  in 
Arabic— probably  prescriptions.  Boxes  and  papers  were  also 
found,  with  Arabic  characters  written  upon  them  ;  and  in  the 
box  which  they  first  took  up  was  a  powder  similar  to  that 
which  Mynheer  Poots  had  given  to  Amine.  There  were  many 
articles  and  waitings  which  made  it  appear  that  the  old  man 
had  dabbled  in  the  occult  sciences,  as  they  were  practised  at 
that  period,  and  those  they  hastened  to  commit  to  the  flames. 

"Had  all  these  been  seen  by  Father  Seysen!"  observed 
108 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Amine  mournfully.  "  But  here  are  some  printed  papers, 
Philip!" 

Philip  examined  them,  and  found  that  they  were  acknow- 
ledgments of  shares  in  the  Dutch  East-India  Company. 

"  No,  Amine,  these  are  money,  or  what  is  as  good — these 
are  eight  shares  in  the  Company's  capital,  which  will  yield  us 
a  handsome  income  every  year.  I  had  no  idea  that  the  old 
man  made  such  use  of  his  money.  I  had  some  intention  of 
doing  the  same  with  a  part  of  mine  before  I  went  away, 
instead  of  allowing  it  to  remain  idle." 

The  iron  chest  was  now  to  be  examined.  When  Philip  first 
opened  it,  he  imagined  that  it  contained  but  little ;  for  it  was 
large  and  deep,  and  appeared  to  be  almost  empty ;  but  when 
he  put  his  hands  down  to  the  bottom,  he  pulled  out  thirty  or 
forty  small  bags,  the  contents  of  which,  instead  of  being  silver 
guilders,  were  all  coins  of  gold ;  there  was  only  one  large  bag  of 
silver  money.  But  this  was  not  all  :  several  small  boxes  and 
packets  were  also  discovered,  which,  when  opened,  were  found 
to  contain  diamonds  and  other  precious  stones.  When  every- 
thing was  collected,  the  treasure  appeared  to  be  of  great  value. 

"  Amine,  my  love,  you  have  indeed  brought  me  an  unex- 
pected dower,"  said  Philip. 

"  You  may  well  say  unexpected,"  replied  Amine.  "  These 
diamonds  and  jewels  my  father  must  have  brought  with  him 
from  Egypt.  And  yet  how  penuriouslv  we  were  living  until 
we  came  to  this  cottage  !  And  with  all  this  treasure  he  would 
have  poisoned  my  Philip  for  more  !  God  forgive  him  ! " 

Having  counted  the  gold,  which  amounted  to  nearly  fifty 
thousand  guilders,  the  whole  was  replaced,  and  they  left  the 
room. 

"  I  am  a  rich  man,"  thought  Philip,  after  Amine  had  left 
him  ;  "  but  of  what  use  are  riches  to  me  ?  I  might  purchase 
a  ship  and  be  my  own  captain,  but  would  not  the  ship  be  lost  ? 
That  certainly  does  not  follow  ;  but  the  chances  are  against 
the  vessel ;  therefore  I  will  have  no  ship.  But  is  it  right  to 
sail  in  the  vessels  of  others  with  this  feeling  ? — I  know  not ; 
this,  however,  I  know,  that  I  have  a  duty  to  perform,  and  that 
all  our  lives  are  in  the  hands  of  a  kind  Providence,  which  calls 
us  away  when  He  thinks  fit.  I  will  place  most  of  my  money 
in  the  shares  of  the  Company,  and  if  I  sail  in  their  vessels, 
and  they  come  to  misfortune  by  meeting  with  my  poor  father, 
109 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

at  least  I  shall  be  a  common  sufferer  with  the  rest.  And 
now  to  make  my  Amine  more  comfortable." 

Philip  immediately  made  a  great  alteration  in  their  style  of 
living.  Two  female  servants  were  hired  ;  the  rooms  were 
more  comfortably  furnished  ;  and  in  everything  in  which  his 
wife's  comfort  and  convenience  were  concerned,  he  spared  no 
expense.  He  wrote  to  Amsterdam,  and  purchased  several 
shares  in  the  Company's  stock.  The  diamonds  and  his  own 
money  he  still  left  in  the  hands  of  Aminev  In  making  these 
arrangements  the  two  months  passed  rapidly  away ;  and 
everything  was  complete  when  Philip  again  received  his 
summons,  by  letter,  to  desire  that  he  would  join  his  vessel. 
Amine  would  have  wished  Philip  to  go  out  as  a  passenger 
instead  of  going  as  an  officer,  but  Philip  preferred  the  latter, 
as  otherwise  he  could  give  no  reason  for  his  voyage  to  India. 

"  I  know  not  why,"  observed  Philip,  the  evening  before  his 
departure,  "  but  I  do  not  feel  as  I  did  when  I  last  went  away  ; 
I  have  no  foreboding  of  evil  this  time." 

"  Nor  have  I,"  replied  Amine  ;  "  but  I  feel  as  if  you  would 
be  long  away  from  me,  Philip ;  and  is  not  that  an  evil  to  a 
fond  and  anxious  wife?" 

"Yes,  love,  it  is;  but  — 

"  Oh  yes,  I  know  it  is  your  duty,  and  you  must  go,"  replied 
Amine,  burying  her  face  in  his  bosom. 

The  next  day  Philip  parted  from  his  wife,  who  behaved 
with  more  fortitude  than  on  her  first  separation.  "  All  were 
lost,  but  he  was  saved,"  thought  Amine.  "  I  feel  that  he  will 
return  to  me.  God  of  heaven,  Thy  will  be  done  ! " 

Philip  soon  arrived  at  Amsterdam  ;  and  having  purchased 
many  things  which  he  thought  might  be  advantageous  to 
him  in  case  of  accident,  to  which  he  now  looked  forward  as 
almost  certain,  he  embarked  on  board  the  Batavia,  which 
was  lying  at  single  anchor,  and  ready  for  sea. 


CHAPTER  XII 

X  HILIP  had  not  been  long  on  board  ere  he  found  that  they 
were  not  likely  to  have  a  very  comfortable  passage  ;  for  the 
Bat  aria  was  chartered  to  convey  a  large  detachment  of  troops 
to  Ceylon  and  Java,  for  the  purpose  of  recruiting  and  strength- 
110 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

ening  the  Company's  forces  at  those  places.  She  was  to  quit 
the  fleet  of  Madagascar,  and  run  direct  for  the  island  of  Java ; 
the  number  of  soldiers  on  board  being  presumed  sufficient  to 
insure  the  ship  against  any  attack  or  accidents  from  pirates 
or  enemies'  cruisers.  The  Batavia,  moreover,  mounted  thirty 
guns,  and  had  a  crew  of  seventy-five  men.  Besides  military 
stores,  which  formed  the  principal  part  of  her  cargo,  she  had  on 
board  a  large  quantity  of  specie  for  the  Indian  market.  The 
detachment  of  soldiers  was  embarking  when  Philip  went  on 
board,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  decks  were  so  crowded  that  it 
was  hardly  possible  to  move.  Philip,  who  had  not  yet  spoken 
to  the  captain,  found  out  the  first  mate,  and  immediately 
entered  upon  his  duty,  with  which,  from  his  close  application 
to  it  during  his  former  voyage  and  passage  home,  he  was  much 
better  acquainted  than  might  have  been  imagined. 

In  a  short  lime  all  traces  of  hurry  and  confusion  began  to 
disappear,  the  baggage  of  the  troops  was  stowed  away,  and  the 
soldiers  having  been  told  off  in  parties,  and  stationed  with  their 
messing  utensils  between  the  guns  of  the  main  deck,  room  was 
thus  afforded  for  working  the  ship.  Philip  showed  great 
activity  as  well  as  method  in  the  arrangements  proposed, 
and  the  captain,  during  a  pause  in  his  own  arduous  duties, 
said  to  him— 

"  I  thought  you  were  taking  it  very  easy,  Mr.  Vanderdecken, 
in  not  joining  the  ship  before,  but  now  you  are  on  board,  you 
are  making  up  for  lost  time.  You  have  done  more  during  the 
forenoon  than  I  could  have  expected.  I  am  glad  that  you  are 
come,  though  very  sorry  you  were  not  here  when  we  were 
stowing  the  hold,  which,  I  am  afraid,  is  not  arranged  quite  so 
well  as  it  might  be.  Mynheer  Struys,  the  first  mate,  has  had 
more  to  do  than  he  could  well  give  attention  to." 

"  I  am  sorry  that  I  should  not  have  been  here,  sir,"  replied 
Philip;  "but  I  came  as  soon  as  the  Company  sent  me  word." 

"  Yes,  and  as  they  know  that  you  are  a  married  man,  and  do 
not  forget  that  you  are  a  great  shareholder,  they  would  not 
trouble  you  too  soon.  I  presume  you  will  have  the  command 
of  a  vessel  next  voyage.  In  fact,  you  are  certain  of  it,  with  the 
capital  you  have  invested  in  their  funds.  I  had  a  conversation 
with  one  of  the  senior  accountants  on  the  subject  this  very 
morning." 

Philip  was  not  very  sorry  that  his  money  had  been  put  out  io 
11  1 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

such  good  interest,  as  to  be  the  captain  of  a  ship  was  what  he 
earnestly  desired.  He  replied,  that  he  certainly  did  hope  to 
command  a  ship  .after  the  next  voyage,  when  he  trusted  that 
he  should  feel  himself  quite  competent  to  the  charge. 

"  No  doubt,  no  doubt,  Mr.  Vanderdecken.  I  can  see  that 
clearly.  You  must  be  very  fond  of  the  sea." 

"  I  am,"  replied  Philip ;  "  I  doubt  whether  I  shall  ever 
give  it  up." 

"  Never  give  it  up !  You  think  so  now.  You  are  young, 
active,  and  full  of  hope ;  but  you  will  tire  of  it  by-and-by, 
and  be  glad  to  lay  by  for  the  rest  of  your  days." 

"How  many  troops  do  we  embark?"  inquired  Philip. 

"Two  hundred  and  forty-five  rank  and  file,  and  six  officers. 
Poor  fellows !  there  are  but  few  of  them  will  ever  return : 
nay,  more  than  one-half  will  not  see  another  birthday.  It 
is  a  dreadful  climate.  I  have  landed  three  hundred  men  at 
that  horrid  hole,  and  in  six  months,  even  before  I  had  sailed, 
there  were  not  one  hundred  left  alive." 

"  It  is  almost  murder  to  send  them  there,"  observed  Philip. 

"  Pshaw  !  they  must  die  somewhere,  and  if  thev  die  a  little 
sooner,  what  matters?  Life  is  a  commodity  to  be  bought 
and  sold  like  any  other.  We  send  out  so  much  manufactured 
goods  and  so  much  money  to  barter  for  Indian  commodities. 
We  also  send  out  so  much  life,  and  it  gives  a  good  return  to 
the  Company." 

"  But  not  to  the  poor  soldiers,  I  am  afraid." 

"  No ;  the  Company  buy  it  cheap  and  sell  it  dear,"  replied 
the  captain,  who  walked  forward. 

"True,"  thought  Philip,  "they  do  purchase  human  life 
cheap,  and  make  a  rare  profit  of  it,  for  without  these  poor 
fellows  how  could  they  hold  their  possessions  in  spite  of 
native  and  foreign  enemies  ?  For  what  a  paltry  and  cheap 
annuity  do  these  men  sell  their  lives  ?  For  what  a  miserable 
pittance  do  they  dare  all  the  horrors  of  a  most  deadly  climate, 
without  a  chance,  a  hope  of  return  to  their  native  land,  where 
they  might  haply  repair  their  exhausted  energies,  and  take  a 
new  lease  of  life  !  Good  God  !  if  these  men  may  be  thus 
heartlessly  sacrificed  to  Mammon,  why  should  I  feel  remorse 
if,  in  the  fulfilment  of  a  sacred  duty  imposed  on  me  by  Him 
who  deals  with  us  as  He  thinks  meet,  a  few  mortals  perish  ? 
Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  His  knowledge, 
112 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

and  it  is  for  Him  to  sacrifice  or  save.  I  am  but  the  creature 
of  His  will,  and  I  but  follow  my  duty, — but  obey  the  com- 
mands of  One  whose  ways  are  inscrutable.  Still,  if  for  my 
sake  this  ship  be  also  doomed,  I  cannot  but  wish  that  I  had 
been  appointed  to  some  other,  in  which  the  waste  of  human 
life  might  have  been  less." 

It  was  not  until  a  week  after  Philip  arrived  on  board  that 
Vhe  Batavia  and  the  remainder  of  the  fleet  were  ready  for  sea. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  analyse  the  feelings  of  Philip  Vander- 
decken  on  this  his  second  embarkation.  His  mind  was  so  con- 
tinually directed  to  the  object  of  his  voyage,  that  although  he 
attended  to  his  religious  duty,  yet  the  business  of  life  passed 
before  him  as  a  dream.  Assured  of  again  meeting  with  the 
Phantom  Ship,  and  almost  equally  assured  that  the  meeting 
would  be  followed  by  some  untoward  event,  in  all  probability 
by  the  sacrifice  of  those  who  sailed  with  him,  his  thoughts 
preyed  upon  him,  and  wore  him  down  to  a  shadow.  He 
hardly  ever  spoke,  except  in  the  execution  of  his  duty.  He 
felt  like  a  criminal ;  as  one  who,  by  embarking  with  them, 
had  doomed  all  around  him  to  death,  disaster,  and  peril ;  and 
when  one  talked  of  his  wife,  and  another  of  his  children — 
when  they  would  indulge  in  anticipations,  and  canvass  happy 
projects,  Philip  would  feel  sick  at  heart,  and  would  rise  from 
the  table  and  hasten  to  the  solitude  of  the  deck.  At  one 
time  he  would  try  to  persuade  himself  that  his  senses  had 
been  worked  upon  in  some  moment  of  excitement,  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  an  illusion  ;  at  another  he  would  call  to 
mind  all  the  past — he  would  feel  its  terrible  reality  :  and  then 
the  thought  would  suggest  itself  that  with  this  supernatural 
vision  Heaven  had  nothing  to  do ;  that  it  was  but  the  work 
and  jugglery  of  Satan.  But  then  the  relic — by  such  means 
the  devil  would  not  have  worked.  A  few  days  after  he  had 
sailed,  he  bitterly  repented  that  he  had  not  stated  the  whole 
of  the  circumstances  to  Father  Seysen,  and  taken  his  advice 
upon  the  propriety  of  following  up  his  search  :  but  it  was 
now  too  late  ;  already  was  the  good  ship  Batavia  more  than 
a  thousand  miles  from  the  port  of  Amsterdam,  and  his  duty, 
whatever  it  might  be,  must  be  fulfilled 

As  the  fleet  approached  the  Cape,  his  anxiety  increased  to 
such  a  degree  that  it  was  remarked  by  all  who  were  on  board. 
The  captain  and  officers  commanding  the  troops  embarkedi 
113  H 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

who  all  felt  interested  in  him,  vainly  attempted  to  learn  the 
cause  of  his  anxiety.  Philip  would  plead  ill  health ;  and  his 
haggard  countenance  and  sunken  eyes  silently  proved  that 
he  was  under  acute  suffering.  The  major  part  of  the  night 
he  passed  on  deck,  straining  his  eyes  in  every  quarter,  and 
watching  each  change  in  the  horizon,  in  anticipation  of  the 
appearance  of  the  Phantom  Ship ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  day 
dawned  that  he  sought  a  perturbed  repose  in  his  cabin.  After 
a  favourable  passage,  the  fleet  anchored  to  refresh  at  Table 
Bay,  and  Philip  felt  some  small  relief,  that  up  to  the  present 
time  the  supernatural  visitation  had  not  again  occurred. 

As  soon  as  the  fleet  had  watered,  they  again  made  sail, 
and  again  did  Philip's  agitation  become  j>erceptible.  With  a 
favouring  breeze,  however,  they  rounded  the  Cape,  passed  by 
Madagascar,  and  arrived  in  the  Indian  Seas,  when  the  Batavia 
parted  company  with  the  rest  of  the  fleet,  which  steered  to 
Cambroon  and  Ceylon.  "  And  now,"  thought  Philip,  "  will 
the  Phantom  Ship  make  her  appearance.  It  has  only  waited 
till  we  should  be  left  without  a  consort  to  assist  us  in  distress. 
But  the  Ealavia  sailed  in  a  smooth  sea  and  under  a  cloudless 
sky,  and  nothing  was  seen.  In  a  few  weeks  she  arrived  off 
Java,  and  previous  to  entering  the  splendid  roads  of  Batavia, 
hove-to  for  the  night.  This  was  the  last  night  they  would  be 
under  sail,  and  Philip  stirred  not  from  the  deck,  but  walked 
to  and  fro,  anxiously  waiting  for  the  morning.  The  morning 
broke — the  sun  rose  in  splendour,  and  the  liataria  steered 
into  the  roads.  Before  noon  she  was  at  anchor,  and  Philip, 
with  his  mind  relieved,  hastened  down  to  his  cabin,  and  took 
that  repose  which  he  so  much  required. 

He  awoke  refreshed,  for  a  great  weight  had  been  taken  off 
his  mind.  "  It  does  not  follow,  then,"  thought  he,  "  that 
because  I  am  on  lx>ard  the  vessel  therefore  the  crew  are 
doomed  to  perish ;  it  does  not  follow  that  the  Phantom  Ship 
is  to  appear  because  I  seek  her.  If  so,  I  have  no  further 
weight  upon  my  conscience.  I  seek  her,  it  is  true,  and  wish 
to  meet  with  her ;  I  stand,  however,  but  the  same  chance  as 
others ;  and  it  is  no  way  certain  that,  because  I  seek,  I  am 
sure  to  find.  That  she  brings  disaster  upon  all  she  meeU 
may  be  true,  but  not  that  I  bring  with  me  the  disaster  of 
meeting  her.  Heaven,  I  thank  thee  !  Now  I  can  prosecute 
my  scui'fh  wilhout  remorse." 

in 


THE   PHANTOM    SHIP 

Philip,  restored  to  composure  by  these  reflections,  went  on 
deck.  The  debarkation  of  the  troops  was  already  taking 
place,  for  they  were  as  anxious  to  be  relieved  from  their  long 
confinement,  as  the  seamen  were  to  regain  a  little  space  and 
comfort.  He  surveyed  the  scene.  The  town  of  Batavia  lay 
about  one  mile  from  them,  low  on  the  beach  ;  from  behind  it 
rose  a  lofty  chain  of  mountains,  brilliant  with  verdure,  and, 
here  and  there,  peopled  with  country  seats,  belonging  to  the 
residents,  delightfully  embosomed  in  forests  of  trees.  The 
panorama  was  beautiful ;  the  vegetation  was  luxuriant,  and, 
from  its  vivid  green,  refreshing  to  the  eye.  Near  to  the 
town  lay  large  and  small  vessels,  a  forest  of  masts  ;  the  water 
in  the  bay  was  of  a  bright  blue,  and  rippled  to  a  soft  breeze ; 
here  and  there  small  islets  (like  tufts  of  fresh  verdure)  broke 
the  uniformity  of  the  water-line  ;  even  the  town  itself  was 
pleasing  to  the  eye,  the  white  colour  of  the  houses  being 
opposed  to  the  dark  foliage  of  the  trees,  which  grew  in  the 
gardens,  and  lined  the  streets. 

"Can  it  be  possible,"  observed  Philip  to  the  captain  of  the 
Batavia,  who  stood  by  him,  "  that  this  beautiful  spot  can  be 
so  unhealthy  ?  I  should  form  a  very  different  opinion  from 
its  appearance." 

"  Even,"  replied  the  captain,  "  as  the  venomous  snakes  of 
the  country  start  up  from  among  its  flowers,  so  does  death 
stalk  about  in  this  beautiful  and  luxuriant  landscape.  Do 
you  feel  better,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken  ?  " 

"  Much  better,"  replied  Philip. 

"  Still,  in  your  enfeebled  state,  I  should  recommend  you  to 
go  on  shore." 

"  I  shall  avail  myself  of  your  permission,  with  thanks.  How 
long  shall  we  stay  here  ?  " 

"  Not  long,  as  we  are  ordered  to  run  back.  Our  cargo  is 
all  ready  for  us,  and  will  be  on  board  soon  after  we  have  dis- 
charged." 

Philip  took  the  advice  of  his  captain  ;  he  had  no  difficulty  in 
finding  himself  received  by  a  hospitable  merchant,  who  had  a 
house  at  some  distance  from  the  town,  and  in  a  healthy  situa- 
tion. There  he  remained  two  months,  during  which  he  re- 
established his  health,  and  then  re-embarked  a  few  days 
previous  to  the  ship  being  ready  for  sea.  The  return  voyage 
was  fortunate,  and  in  four  months  from  the  date  of  their 
115 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

quitting  Batavia,  they  found  themselves  abreast  of  St.  Helena; 
for  vessels  at  that  period  generally  made  what  is  called  the 
eastern  passage,  running  down  the  coast  of  Africa,  instead  of 
keeping  towards  the  American  shores.  Again  they  had  passed 
the  Cape  without  meeting  with  the  Phantom  Ship;  and  Philip 
was  not  only  in  excellent  health,  but  in  good  spirits.  As  they 
lay  becalmed,  with  the  island  in  sight,  they  observed  a  boat 
pulling  towards  them,  and  in  the  course  of  three  hours  she 
arrived  on  board.  The  crew  were  much  exhausted  from  having 
been  two  days  in  the  boat,  during  which  time  they  had  never 
ceased  pulling  to  gain  the  island.  They  stated  themselves  to 
be  the  crew  of  a  small  Dutch  Indiaman,  which  had  foundered 
at  sea  two  days  before  ;  she  had  started  one  of  her  planks, 
and  filled  so  rapidly  that  the  men  had  hardly  time  to  save 
themselves.  They  consisted  of  the  captain,  mates,  and  twenty 
men  belonging  to  the  ship,  and  an  old  Portuguese  Catholic 
priest,  who  had  been  sent  home  by  the  Dutch  governor,  for 
having  opposed  the  Dutch  interests  in  the  island  of  Japan. 
He  had  lived  with  the  natives,  and  been  secreted  by  them  for 
some  tims,  as  the  Japanese  government  was  equally  desirous 
of  capturing  him,  with  the  intention  of  taking  away  his  life. 
Eventually  he  found  himself  obliged  to  throw  himself  into 
the  arm  >  of  the  Dutch,  as  being  the  less  cruel  of  his  enemies. 

The  Dutch  government  decided  that  he  should  be  sent  away 
from  the  country ;  and  he  had,  in  consequence,  been  put  on 
board  of  the  Indiaman  for  a  passage  home.  By  the  report  of 
the  captain  and  crew,  one  person  only  had  been  lost ;  but  he 
was  a  person  of  consequence,  having  for  many  years  held  the 
situation  of  president  in  the  Dutch  factory  at  Japan.  He  was 
returning  to  Holland  with  the  riches  which  he  hail  amassed. 
By  the  evidence  of  the  captain  and  crew,  he  had  insisted, 
after  he  was  put  into  the  boat,  upon  going  back  to  the  ship 
to  secure  a  casket  of  immense  value,  containing  diamonds  and 
other  precious  stones,  which  he  had  forgotten ;  they  added, 
that  while  they  were  waiting  for  him  the  ship  suddenly 
plunged  her  bowsprit  under,  and  went  down  head  foremost, 
and  that  it  was  with  difficulty  they  had  themselves  escaped. 
They  had  waited  for  some  time  to  ascertain  if  he  would  rise 
again  to  the  surface,  but  he  appeared  no  more. 

"  I  knew  that  something  would  happen,"  observed  the  cap- 
tain of  the  sunken  vessel,  after  he  had  been  sitting  a  short 
116 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

time  in  the  cabin  with  Philip  and  the  captain  of  the  Batavia  j 
"  we  saw  the  Fiend  or  Devil's  Ship,  as  they  call  her,  but  three 
days  before." 

"  What !  the  Flying  Dutchman,  as  they  name  her  ?  "  ashed 
Philip. 

"  Yes ;  that,  I  believe,  is  the  name  they  give  her,"  replied 
the  captain.  "  I  have  often  heard  of  her ;  but  it  never  was 
my  fate  to  fall  in  with  her  before,  and  I  hope  it  never  will  be 
again  ;  for  I  am  a  ruined  man,  and  must  begin  the  world  afresh." 

"  I  have  heard  of  that  vessel,"  observed  the  captain  of  the 
Batavia.  "  Pray,  how  did  she  appear  to  you  ?  " 

"Why,  the  fact  is,  I  did  not  see  anything  but  the  loom  of 
her  hull,"  replied  the  other.  "  It  was  very  strange  ;  the  night 
was  fine,  and  the  heavens  clear  ;  we  were  under  the  top-gallant 
sails,  for  I  do  not  carry  on  during  the  night,  or  else  we  might 
have  put  the  royals  on  her ;  she  would  have  carried  them  with 
the  breeze.  I  had  turned  in,  when  about  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  the  mate  called  me  to  come  on  deck.  I  demanded 
what  was  the  matter,  and  he  replied  he  could  hardly  tell,  but 
that  the  men  were  much  frightened,  and  that  there  was  a 
Ghost  Ship,  as  the  sailors  termed  it,  in  fight.  I  went  on 
deck  ;  all  the  horizon  was  clear,  but  on  our  quarter  was  a  sort 
of  fog,  round  as  a  ball,  and  not  more  than  two  cables'  length 
from  us.  We  were  going  about  four  knots  and  a  half  free, 
and  yet  we  could  not  escape  from  this  mist.  '  Look  there,' 
said  the  mate.  '  Why,  what  the  devil  can  it  be  ? '  said  I,  rub- 
bing my  eyes.  '  No  banks  up  to  windward,  and  yet  a  fog  in 
the  middle  of  a  clear  sky,  with  a  fresh  breeze,  and  with  water 
all  around  it ; '  for  you  see  the  fog  did  not  cover  more  than  half- 
a-dozen  cables'  length,  as  we  could  perceive  by  the  horizon  on 
each  side  of  it.  '  Hark,  sir  ! '  said  the  mate — '  they  are  speak- 
ing again.'  '  Speaking  ! '  said  I,  and  I  listened  ;  and  from  out 
this  ball  of  fog  I  heard  voices.  At  last,  one  cried  out, '  Keep 
a  sharp  look-out  forward,  d'ye  hear  ?  '  '  Ay,  ay,  sir  ! '  replied 
another  voice.  '  Ship  on  the  starboard  bow,  sir.'  '  Very  well ; 
strike  the  bell  there  forward.'  And  then  we  heard  the  bell 
toll.  '  It  must  be  a  vessel,'  said  I  to  the  mate.  '  Not  of  this 
world,  sir,'  replied  he.  '  Hark  ! '  '  A  gun  ready  forward.'  '  Ay, 
ay,  sir ! '  was  now  heard  out  of  the  fog,  which  appeared  to 
near  us ;  '  all  ready,  sir.'  '  Fire  ! '  The  report  of  the  gun 
sounded  on  our  ears  like  thunder,  and  then  — 
117 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"Well,  and  then?"  said  the  captain  of  the  Batavia, 
breathless, 

"And  then/'  replied  the  other  captain  solemnly,  "the  fog 
and  all  disappeared  as  if  by  magic,  the  whole  horizon  was  clear, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen." 

"  Is  it  possible  ?" 

"There  are  twenty  men  on  deck  to  tell  the  story,"  replied 
the  captain.  "  And  the  old  Catholic  priest  to  boot,  for  he 
stood  by  me  the  whole  time  I  was  on  deck.  The  men  said 
that  some  accident  would  happen  ;  and  in  the  morning  watch, 
on  sounding  the  well,  we  found  four  feet  water.  We  took  to 
the  pumps,  but  it  gained  upon  us,  and  we  went  down,  as  I 
have  told  you.  The  mate  says  that  the  vessel  is  well  known 
— it  is  called  the  Flying  Dutchman." 

Philip  made  no  remarks  at  the  time,  but  he  was  much 
pleased  at  what  he  had  heard.  "  If,"  thought  he,  "  the 
Phantom  Ship  of  my  poor  father  appears  to  others  as  well  as 
to  me,  and  they  are  sufferers,  my  being  on  board  can  make 
no  difference.  I  do  but  take  my  chance  of  falling  in  with 
her,  and  do  not  risk  the  lives  of  those  who  sail  in  the  same 
vessel  with  me.  Now  my  mind  is  relieved,  and  I  can  prose- 
cute my  search  with  a  quiet  conscience." 

The  next  day  Philip  took  an  opportunity  of  making  the 
acquaintance  of  the  Catholic  priest,  who  spoke  Dutch  and 
other  languages  as  well  as  he  did  Portuguese.  He  was  a 
venerable  old  man,  apparently  about  sixty  years  of  age,  with 
a  white  flowing  beard,  mild  in  his  demeanour,  and  very  pleas- 
ing in  his  conversation. 

When  Philip  kept  his  watch  that  night,  the  old  man  walked 
with  him,  and  it  was  then,  after  a  long  conversation,  that 
Philip  confided  to  him  that  he  was  of  the  Catholic  persuasion. 

"Indeed,  my  son  !  that  is  unusual  in  a  Hollander." 

"  It  is  so,"  replied  Philip  ;  "nor  is  it  known  on  board — not 
that  I  am  ashamed  of  my  religion,  but  I  wish  to  avoid  dis- 
cussion." 

"  You  are  prudent,  my  son.  Alas  !  if  the  reformed  religion 
produces  no  better  fruit  than  what  I  have  witnessed  in  the 
East,  it  is  little  better  than  idolatry." 

"  Tell  me,  father,"  said  Philip — "  they  talk  of  a  miraculous 
vision — of  a  ship  not  manned  by  mortal  men.  Did  you 
see  it?" 

118 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  I  saw  what  others  saw/'  replied  the  priest ;  "  and  certainly, 
as  far  as  my  senses  would  enable  me  to  judge,  the  appearance 
was  most  unusual — I  may  say  supernatural ;  but  I  had  heard 
of  this  Phantom  Ship  before,  and  moreover  that  its  appear- 
ance was  the  precursor  of  disaster.  So  did  it  prove  in  our 
case,  although,  indeed,  we  had  one  on  board,  now  no  more, 
whose  weight  of  guilt  was  more  than  sufficient  to  sink  any 
vessel ;  one,  the  swallowing  up  of  whom,  with  all  that  wealth 
from  which  he  anticipated  such  enjoyment  in  his  own  country, 
has  manifested  that  the  Almighty  will,  even  in  this  world, 
sometimes  wreak  just  and  awful  retribution  on  those  who 
have  merited  His  vengeance." 

"  You  refer  to  the  Dutch  President  who  went  down  with 
the  ship  when  it  sank." 

"  I  do  ;  but  the  tale  of  that  man's  crime  is  long  ;  to-morrow 
night,  I  will  walk  with  you,  and  narrate  the  whole.  Peace  be 
with  you,  my  son,  and  good  night." 

The  weather  continued  fine,  and  the  Bataria  hove-to  in  the 
evening  with  the  intention  of  anchoring  the  next  morning  in 
the  roadstead  of  St.  Helena.  Philip,  when  he  went  on  deck 
to  keep  the  middle  watch,  found  the  old  priest  at  the  gang- 
way waiting  for  him.  In  the  ship  all  was  quiet ;  the  men 
slumbered  between  the  guns,  and  Philip,  with  his  new 
acquaintance,  went  aft,  and  seating  themselves  on  a  hencoop, 
the  priest  commenced  as  follows  : — 

"  You  are  not,  perhaps,  aware  that  the  Portuguese,  although 
anxious  to  secure  for  themselves  a  country  discovered  by  their 
enterprise  and  courage,  and  the  possession  of  which,  I  fear, 
has  cost  them  many  crimes,  have  still  never  lost  sight  of  one 
point  dear  to  all  good  Catholics — that  of  spreading  wide  the 
true  faith,  and  planting  the  banner  of  Christ  in  the  regions  of 
idolatry.  Some  of  our  countrymen  having  been  wrecked  on 
the  coast,  we  were  made  acquainted  with  the  islands  of  Japan, 
and  seven  years  afterwards,  our  holy  and  blessed  St.  Francis, 
now  with  God,  landed  on  the  island  of  Ximo,  where  he 
remained  for  two  years  and  five  months,  during  which  he 
preached  our  religion  and  made  many  converts.  He  after- 
wards embarked  for  China,  his  original  destination,  but  was 
not  permitted  to  arrive  there  ;  he  died  011  his  passage,  and  thus 
closed  his  pure  and  holy  life.  After  his  death,  notwithstand- 
ing the  many  obstacles  thrown  in  our  way  by  the  priests  of 
119 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

idolatry,  and  the  persecutions  with  which  they  occasionally 
visited  the  members  of  our  faith,  the  converts  to  our  holy 
religion  increased  greatly  in  the  Japanese  islands.  The  religion 
spread  fast,  and  many  thousands  worshipped  the  true  God. 

"After  a  time,  thd  Dutch  formed  a  settlement  at  Japan, 
and  when  they  found  that  the  Japanese  Christians  around 
the  factories  would  deal  only  with  the  Portuguese,  in  whom 
they  had  confidence,  they  became  our  enemies ;  and  the  man 
of  whom  we  have  spoken,  and  who  at  that  period  was  the 
head  of  the  Dutch  factory,  determined,  in  his  lust  for  gold, 
to  make  the  Christian  religion  a  source  of  suspicion  to  the 
emperor  of  the  country,  and  thus  to  ruin  the  Portuguese  and 
their  adherents.  Such,  my  son,  was  the  conduct  of  one  who 
professed  to  have  embraced  the  reformed  religion  as  being  of 
greater  purity  than  our  own. 

"  There  was  a  Japanese  lord  of  great  wealth  and  influence 
who  lived  near  us,  and  who,  with  two  of  his  sons,  had  embraced 
Christianity,  and  had  been  baptized.  He  had  two  other  sons, 
who  lived  at  the  emperor's  court.  This  lord  had  made  us  a 
present  of  a  house  for  a  college  and  school  of  instruction  ;  on 
his  death,  however,  his  two  sons  at  court,  who  were  idolaters, 
insisted  upon  our  quitting  this  property.  We  refused,  and 
thus  afforded  the  Dutch  principal  an  opportunity  of  inflaming 
these  young  noblemen  against  us  :  by  this  means  he  persuaded 
the  Japanese  emperor  that  the  Portuguese  and  Christians  had 
formed  a  conspiracy  against  his  life  and  throne ;  for,  be  it 
observed,  that  when  a  Dutchman  was  asked  if  he  was  a 
Christian,  he  would  reply,  '  No ;  I  am  a  Hollander.' 

"The  emperor,  believing  in  this  conspiracy,  gave  an  imme- 
diate order  for  the  extirpation  of  the  Portuguese,  and  then  of 
all  the  Japanese  who  had  embraced  the  Christian  faith  ;  he 
raised  an  army  for  this  purpose  and  gave  the  command  of  it  to 
the  young  noblemen  I  have  mentioned,  the  sons  of  the  lord 
who  had  given  us  the  college.  The  Christians,  aware  that 
resistance  was  their  only  chance,  flew  to  arms,  and  chose  as 
their  generals  the  other  two  sons  of  the  Japanese  lord,  who, 
with  their  father,  had  embraced  Christianity.  Thus  were  the 
two  armies  commanded  by  four  brothers,  two  on  the  one  side 
and  two  on  the  other. 

"  The  Christian  army  amounted  to  more  than  40,000  men, 
but  of  this  the  emperor  was  not  aware,  and  he  sent  a  force  of 
120 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

about  25,000  to  conquer  and  exterminate  them.  The  armies 
met,  and  after  an  obstinate  combat  (for  the  Japanese  are  very 
brave)  the  victory  was  on  the  part  of  the  Christians,  and  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  who  saved  themselves  in  the  boats,,  the 
army  of  the  emperor  was  cut  to  pieces. 

"  This  victory  was  the  occasion  of  making  more  converts, 
and  our  army  was  soon  increased  to  upwards  of  .50,000  men. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  emperor,  perceiving  that  his  troops  had 
been  destroyed,  ordered  new  levies  and  raised  a  force  of  1 50,000 
men,  giving  directions  to  his  generals  to  give  no  quarter  to  the 
Christians,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  young  lords  who 
commanded  them,  whom  he  wished  to  secure  alive,  that  he 
might  put  them  to  death  by  slow  torture.  All  offers  of  accom- 
modation were  refused,  and  the  emperor  took  the  field  in 
person.  The  armies  again  met,  and  on  the  first  day's  battle 
the  victory  was  on  the  part  of  the  Christians;  still  they  had 
to  lament  the  loss  of  one  of  their  generals,  who  was  wounded 
and  taken  prisoner,  and  no  quarter  having  been  given,  their 
loss  was  severe. 

'•'  The  second  day's  combat  was  fatal  to  the  Christians.  Their 
general  was  killed  ;  they  were  overpowered  by  numbers,  and 
fell  to  a  man.  The  emperor  then  attacked  the  camp  in  the 
rear,  and  put  to  the  sword  every  old  man,  woman,  and  child. 
On  the  field  of  battle,  in  the  camp,  and  by  subsequent  torture, 
more  than  60,000  Christians  perished.  But  this  was  not  all  ; 
a  rigorous  search  for  Christians  was  made  throughout  the 
islands  for  many  years ;  and  they  were,  when  found,  put  to 
death  by  the  most  cruel  torture.  It  was  not  until  fifteen  years 
ago  that  Christianity  was  entirely  rooted  out  of  the  Japanese 
empire,  and  during  a  persecution  of  somewhat  more  than 
sixteen  years,  it  is  supposed  that  upwards  of  400,000  Chris- 
tians were  destroyed  ;  and  all  this  slaughter,  my  sou,  was  occa- 
sioned by  the  falsehood  and  avarice  of  that  man  who  met  his 
just  punishment  but  a  few  days  ago.  The  Dutch  company, 
pleased  with '  his  conduct,  which  procured  for  them  such 
advantages,  continued  him  for  many  years  as  the  president  of 
their  factory  at  Japan.  He  was  a  young  man  when  he  first 
went  there,  but  his  hair  was  grey  when  he  thought  of  return- 
ing to  his  own  country.  He  had  amassed  immense  wealth — 
immense,  indeed,  must  it  have  been  to  have  satisfied  avarice 
such  as  his  !  All  has  now  perished  with  him,  and  he  has  been 
121 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

summoned  to  his  account.  Reflect  a  little,  my  son.  Is  it  not 
better  to  follow  up  our  path  of  duty,  to  eschew  the  riches  and 
pleasures  of  this  world,  and,  at  our  summons  hence,  to  feel 
that  we  have  hopes  of  bliss  hereafter  ?  " 

"  Most  true,  holy  father,"  replied  Philip,  musing. 

"  I  have  but  a  few  years  to  live,"  continued  the  old  man, 
"and  God  knows  I  shall  quit  this  world  without  reluctance." 

"  And  so  could  I,"  replied  Philip. 

"  You.  my  son  ! — no.  You  are  young,  and  should  be  full  of 
hopes.  You  have  still  to  do  your  duty  in  that  station  to 
which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  you." 

"I  know  that  I  have  a  duty  to  perform,"  replied  Philip. 
"Father,  the  night  air  is  too  keen  for  one  so  aged  as  you. 
Retire  to  your  bed,  and  leave  me  to  my  watch  and  my  own 
thoughts." 

"  I  will,  my  son  !  may  Heaven  guard  you  !  Take  an  old 
man's  blessing.  Good  night." 

"  Good  night,"  replied  Philip,  glad  to  be  alone.  "  Shall  I 
confess  all  to  him  ?  "  thought  Philip.  "  I  feel  I  could  confess 
to  him — but  no.  I  would  not  to  Father  Seysen — why  to  him  ? 

I  should  put  myself  in  his  power,  and  he  might  order  me 

No,  no!  my  secret  is  my  own.  I  need  no  advisers."  And 
Philip  pulled  out  the  relic  from  his  bosom,  and  put  it 
reverently  to  his  lips. 

The  Batavia  waited  a  few  days  at  St.  Helena,  and  then  con- 
tinued her  voyage.  In  six  weeks  Philip  again  found  himself  at 
anchor  in  the  Zuyder  Zee,  and  having  the  captain's  permission, 
he  immediately  set  off  for  his  own  home,  taking  with  him  the 
old  Portuguese  priest  Mathias,  with  whom  he  had  formed  a 
great  intimacy,  and  to  whom  he  had  offered  his  protection  for 
the  time  he  might  wish  to  remain  in  the  Low  Countries. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Jr  AR  be  it  from  me  to  wish  to  annoy  you,  my  son,"  said 
Father  Mathias,  as  with  difficulty  he  kept  pace  with  the  rapid 
strides  of  Philip,  who  was  now  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
his  home  ;  "  but  still,  recollect  that  this  is  but  a  transitory 
world,  and  that  much  time  has  elapsed  since  you  quitted  this 
122 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

spot.  For  that  reason,  I  would  fain  desire  you,  if  possible,  to 
check  these  bounding  aspirations  after  happiness,  these  joyful 
anticipations  in  which  you  have  indulged  since  we  quitted  the 
vessel.  I  hope  and  trust  in  the  mercy  of  God  that  all  will  be 
right,  and  that  in  a  few  minutes  you  will  be  in  the  arms  of 
your  much-loved  wife;  but  still,  in  proportion  as  you  allow  your 
hopes  to  be  raised,  so  will  you  inevitably  have  them  crushed 
should  disappointment  cross  your  path.  At  Flushing  we  were 
told  that  there  has  been  a  dreadful  visitation  in  this  lard,  and 
death  may  not  have  spared  even  one  so  young  and  fair." 

"  Let  us  hasten  on,  father,"  replied  Philip.  "  What  you  say 
is  true,  and  suspense  becomes  most  dreadful." 

Philip  increased  his  speed,  leaving  the  old  man  to  follow 
him  ;  he  arrived  at  the  bridge  with  its  wooden  gate.  It  was 
then  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  for  they  had  crossed 
the  Scheldt  at  the  dawn  of  day. 

Philip  observed  that  the  lower  shutters  were  still  closed. 

"They  might  have  been  up  and  stirring  before  this," 
thought  he,  as  he  put  his  hand  to  the  latch  of  the  door.  It 
was  not  fastened.  Philip  entered ;  there  was  a  light  burning 
in  the  kitchen  ;  he  pushed  open  the  door,  and  beheld  a  maid- 
servant leaning  back  in  her  chair,  in  a  profound  sleep.  Before 
he  had  time  to  go  in  and  awaken  her,  he  heard  a  voice  at  the 
top  of  the  stairs,  saying,  "  Marie,  is  that  the  doctor  ?  " 

Philip  waited  no  longer ;  in  three  bounds  he  was  on  the 
landing-place  above,  and  brushing  by  the  person  who  had 
spoken,  he  opened  the  door  of  Amine's  room. 

A  floating  wick  in  a  tumbler  of  oil  gave  but  a  faint  and 
glimmering  light ;  the  curtains  of  the  bed  were  drawn,  and 
by  the  side  of  it  was  kneeling  a  figure  that  was  well  known  to 
Philip— that  of  Father  Seysen.  Philip  recoiled ;  the  blood 
retreated  to  his  heart ;  he  could  not  speak :  panting  for 
breath,  he  supported  himself  against  the  wall,  and  at  last 
vented  his  agony  of  feeling  by  a  deep  groan,  which  aroused 
the  priest,  who  turned  his  head,  and  perceiving  who  it  was, 
rose  from  his  knees,  and  extended  his  hand  in  silence. 

"She  is  dead,  then  !  "  at  last  exclaimed  Philip. 

"  No,  my  son,  not  dead  ;  there  is  yet  hope.     The  crisis  is  at 
hand  ;  in  one  more  hour  her  fate  will  be  decided  :  then  either 
will  she  be  restored  to  your  arms,  or  follow  the  many  hundreds 
whom  this  fatal  epidemic  has  consigned  to  the  tcriib." 
123 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Father  Seysen  then  led  Philip  to  the  side  of  the  bed,  and 
withdrew  the  curtain.  A  mine  lay  insensible,  but  breathing 
heavily ;  her  eyes  were  closed.  Philip  seized  her  burning 
hand,  knelt  down,  pressed  it  to  his  lips,  and  burst  into  a 
paroxysm  of  tears.  As  soon  as  he  had  become  somewhat 
composed,  Father  Seysen  persuaded  him  to  rise  and  sit  with 
him  by  the  side  of  the  bed. 

"This  is  a  melancholy  sight  to  witness  at  your  return, 
Philip,"  said  he  ;  "  and  to  you  who  are  so  ardent,  so  im- 
petuous, it  must  be  doubly  so ;  but  God's  will  be  done. 
Remember,  there  is  yet  hope — not  strong  hope,  I  grant ; 
but  still,  there  is  hope,  for  so  told  me  the  medical  man 
who  has  attended  her,  and  who  will  return,  I  expect,  in  a 
few  minutes.  Her  disease  is  a  typhus  fever,  which  has 
swept  off  whole  families  within  these  last  two  months,  and 
still  rages  violently  ;  fortunate,  indeed,  is  the  house  which 
has  to  mourn  but  one  victim.  I  would  that  you  had  not 
arrived  just  now,  for  it  is  a  disease  easily  communicated. 
Many  have  fled  from  the  country  for  security.  To  add  to 
our  misfortunes,  we  have  suffered  from  the  want  of  medical 
advice,  for  physician  and  patient  have  been  swept  away 
together." 

The  door  was  now  slowly  opened,  and  a  tall  dark  man,  in 
a  brown  cloak,  holding  to  his  nose  a  sponge  saturated  with 
vinegar,  entered  the  room.  He  bowed  his  head  to  Philip 
and  the  priest,  and  then  went  to  the  bedside.  For  a  minute 
he  held  his  fingers  to  the  pulse  of  the  sufferer,  then  laying 
down  her  arm,  he  put  his  hand  to  her  forehead,  and  covered 
her  up  with  the  bedclothes.  He  handed  to  Philip  the 
sponge  and  vinegar,  making  a  sign  that  he  should  use  it, 
and  beckoned  Father  Seysen  out  of  the  room. 

In  a  minute  the  priest  returned.  "  I  have  received  his 
directions,  my  son ;  he  thinks  that  she  may  be  saved.  The 
clothes  must  be  kept  on  her,  and  replaced  if  she  should 
throw  them  off;  but  everything  will  depend  upon  quiet  and 
calm  after  she  recovers  her  senses." 

"Surely,  we  can  promise  her  that,"  replied  Philip. 

"  It  is  not  the  knowledge  of  your  return,  or  even  the  sight 
of  you,  which  alarms  me.  Joy  seldom  kills,  even  when  the 
shock  is  great,  but  there  are  other  causes  for  uneasiness," 

«  What  are  they,  holy  father  ?  " 
124 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Philip,  it  is  now  thirteen  days  that  Amine  has  raved,  and 
during  that  period  I  have  seldom  quitted  her  but  to  perform 
the  duties  of  my  office  to  others  who  required  it.  I  have 
been  afraid  to  leave  her,  Philip,  for  in  her  ravings  she  has 
told  such  a  tale,  even  unconnected  as  it  lias  been,  as  has 
thrilled  my  soul  with  horror.  It  evidently  has  long  lain 
heavily  on  her  mind,  and  must  retard  her  recovery.  Philip 
Vanderdecken,  you  may  remember  that  I  would  once  have 
had  the  secret  from  you — the  secret  which  forced  your 
mother  to  her  tomb,  and  which  now  may  send  your  young 
wife  to  follow  her,  for  it  is  evident  that  she  knows  all.  Is 
it  not  true?" 

"She  does  know  all,"  replied  Philip  mournfully. 

"  And  she  has  in  her  delirium  told  all.  Nay,  I  trust  she 
has  told  more  than  all  ;  but  of  that  we  will  not  speak  now  : 
watch  her,  Philip.  I  will  return  in  half-an-hour,  for  by  that 
time,  the  doctor  tells  me,  the  symptoms  will  decide  whether 
she  will  return  to  reason,  or  be  lost  to  you  for  ever." 

Philip  whispered  to  the  priest  that  he  had  been  accom- 
panied by  Father  Mathias,  who  was  to  remain  as  his  guest, 
and  requested  him  to  explain  the  circumstances  of  his  present 
position  to  him,  and  see  that  he  was  attended  to.  Father 
Seysen  then  quitted  the  room,  when  Philip  sat  down  by  the 
bedside,  and  drew  back  the  curtain. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  situation  in  life  so  agonising  to  the 
feelings  as  that  in  which  Philip  was  now  placed.  His  joyful 
emotions,  when  expecting  to  embrace  in  health  and  beauty 
the  object  of  his  warmest  affections,  and  of  his  continual 
thought  during  his  long  absence,  suddenly  checked  by  dis- 
appointment, anxiety,  and  grief,  at  finding  her  lying  emaci- 
ated, changed,  corrupted  with  disease — her  mind  overthrown 
• — her  eyes  unconscious  of  his  presence — her  existence  hang- 
ing by  a  single  hair — her  frame  prostrate  before  the  King 
of  Terrors,  who  hovers  over  her  with  uplifted  dart,  and  longs 
for  the  fiat  which  should  permit  him  to  pierce  his  unconscious 
Victim. 

"  Alas ! "  thought  Philip,  "  is  it  thus  we  meet,  Amine  ? 
Truly  did  Father  Mathias  advise  me,  as  I  hurried  so  impetu- 
ously along,  not  (as  I  fondly  thought)  to  happiness,  but  to 
misery.  God  of  Heaven  !  be  merciful  and  forgive  me.  If  I 
have  loved  this  angelic  creature  of  Thy  formation;  even  more 
125 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

than  I  have  Thee,  spare  her,  good  Heaven,  spare  her— or  I 
am  lost  for  ever." 

Philip  covered  up  his  face,  and  remained  for  some  time  in 
prayer.  He  then  bent  over  his  Amine,  and  impressed  a  kiss 
upon  her  burning  lips.  They  were  burning,  but  still  there 
Was  moisture  upon  them,  and  Philip  perceived  that  there  was 
also  moisture  on  her  forehead.  He  felt  her  hand,  and  the 
palm  of  it  was  moist ;  and  carefully  covering  her  with  the 
bedclothes,  he  watched  her  with  anxiety  and  hope. 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  had  the  delight  of  perceiving 
that  Amine  was  in  a  profuse  perspiration ;  gradually  her 
breathing  became  less  heavy,  and  instead  of  the  passive  state 
in  which  she  had  remained,  she  moved,  and  became  restless. 
Philip  watched,  and  replaced  the  clothes  as  she  threw  them 
off,  until  she  at  last  appeared  to  have  fallen  into  a  profound 
and  sweet  sleep.  Shortly  after,  Father  Seysen  and  the  phy- 
sician made  their  appearance.  Philip  stated,  in  few  words, 
what  had  occurred.  The  doctor  went  to  the  bedside,  and  in 
half  a  minute  returned. 

"  Your  wife  is  spared  to  you,  Mynheer,  but  it  is  not  advisable 
that  she  should  see  you  so  unexpectedly ;  the  shock  may  be 
too  great  in  her  weak  state ;  she  must  be  allowed  to  sleep  as 
long  as  possible ;  on  her  waking  she  will  have  returned  to 
reason.  You  must  leave  her  then  to  Father  Seysen." 

"  May  I  not  remain  in  the  room  until  she  wakes  ?  I  will 
then  hasten  away  unobserved." 

"That  will  be  useless;  the  disease  is  contagious,  and  you 
have  been  here  too  long  already.  Remain  below  ;  you  must 
change  your  clothes,  and  see  that  they  prepare  a  bed  for  her 
in  another  room,  to  which  she  must  be  transported  as  soon 
as  you  think  she  can  bear  it ;  and  then  let  these  windows  be 
thrown  open,  that  the  room  may  be  properly  ventilated.  It 
will  not  do  to  have  a  wife  just  rescued  from  the  jaws  of  death 
run  the  risk  of  falling  a  sacrifice  to  the  attentions  necessary 
to  a  sick  husband." 

Philip  perceived  the  prudence  of  this  advice,  and  quitting 
the  room  with  the  medical  man,  he  went  and  changed  his 
clothes,  and  then  joined  Father  Mathias,  whom  he  found  in 
the  parlour  below. 

"  You  were  right,  father/'  said  Philip,  throwing  himself  on 
the  sofa. 

126 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"I  am  old  and  suspicious,  you  are  young  and  buoyant, 
Philip;  but  I  trust  all  may  yet  be  well." 

"  I  trust  so  too,"  replied  Philip.  He  then  remained  silent 
and  absorbed  in  thought,  for  now  that  the  imminent  danger 
was  over  he  was  reflecting  upon  what  Father  Seysen  had 
communicated  to  him,  relative  to  Amine's  having  revealed 
the  secret  whilst  in  a  state  of  mental  aberration.  The  priest 
perceiving  that  his  mind  was  occupied,  did  not  interrupt  him. 
An  hour  had  thus  passed,  when  Father  Seysen  entered  the 
room. 

"  Return  thanks  to  Heaven,  my  son.  Amine  has  awakened, 
and  is  perfectly  sensible  and  collected.  There  is  now  little 
doubt  of  her  recovery.  She  has  taken  the  restorative  ordered 
by  the  doctor,  though  she  was  so  anxious  to  repose  once  more, 
that  she  could  hardly  be  persuaded  to  swallow  it.  She  is  now 
again  fast  asleep,  and  watched  by  one  of  the  maidens,  and  in 
all  probability  will  not  move  for  many  hours  ;  but  every  moment 
of  such  sleep  is  precious,  and  she  must  not  be  disturbed.  I 
)vill  now  see  to  some  refreshment,  which  must  be  needful  to  us 
all.  Philip,  you  have  not  introduced  me  to  your  companion, 
who,  I  perceive,  is  of  my  own  calling." 

"Forgive  me,  sir,"  replied  Philip;  "you  will  have  great 
pleasure  in  making  acquaintance  with  Father  Mathias,  who 
has  promised  to  reside  with  me,  I  trust,  for  some  time.  I 
will  leave  you  together,  and  see  to  the  breakfast  being  pre- 
pared ;  for  the  delay  of  which  I  trust  Father  Mathias  will 
accept  my  apology." 

Philip  then  left  the  room  and  went  into  the  kitchen. 
Having  ordered  what  was  requisite  to  be  taken  into  the 
parlour,  he  put  on  his  hat  and  walked  out  of  the  house.  He 
could  not  eat ;  his  mind  was  in  a  state  of  confusion  ;  the 
events  of  the  morning  had  been  too  harassing  and  exciting, 
and  he  felt  as  if  the  fresh  air  was  necessary  to  his  existence. 

As  he  proceeded,  careless  in  what  direction,  he  met  many 
with  whom  he  had  been  acquainted,  and  from  whom  he  had 
received  condolence  at  his  supposed  bereavement,  and  con- 
gratulations when  they  learnt  from  him  that  the  danger  was 
over ;  and  from  them  he  also  learnt  how  faU:l  had  been  the 
pestilence. 

Not  one-third  of  the  inhabitants  of  Terncuse  and  the  sur- 
rounding country  remained  alive,  and  those  who  had  recovered 
127 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

were  in  a  state  of  exhaustion,  which  prevented  them  from 
returning  to  their  accustomed  occupations.  They  had  com- 
bated disease,  but  remained  the  prey  of  misery  and  want ; 
and  Philip  mentally  vowed  that  he  would  appropriate  all  his 
savings  to  the  relief  of  those  around  him.  It  was  not  until 
more  than  two  hours  had  passed  away  that  Philip  returned 
to  the  cottage. 

On  his  arrival  he  found  that  Amine  still  slumbered,  and  the 
two  priests  were  in  conversation  below. 

"  My  son,"  said  Father  Seysen,  "  let  us  now  have  a  little 
explanation.  I  have  had  a  long  conference  with  this  good 
father,  who  hath  much  interested  me  with  his  account  of  the 
extension  of  our  holy  religion  among  the  pagans.  He  hath 
communicated  to  me  much  to  rejoice  at,  and  much  to  grieve 
for ;  but,  among  other  questions  put  to  him,  I  have  (in  conse- 
quence of  what  I  have  learnt  during  the  mental  alienation  of 
your  wife)  interrogated  him  upon  the  point  of  a  supernatural 
appearance  of  a  vessel  in  the  Eastern  seas.  You  observe, 
Philip,  that  your  secret  is  known  to  me,  or  I  could  not  have 
put  that  question.  To  my  surprise  he  hath  stated  a  visitation 
of  the  kind  to  which  he  was  eye-witness,  and  which  cannot 
reasonably  be  accounted  for,  except  by  supernatural  inter- 
position. A  strange  and  certainly  most  awful  visitation ! 
Philip,  would  it  not  be  better  (instead  of  leaving  me  in  a 
maze  of  doubt)  that  you  now  confided  to  us  both  .-ill  the  facts 
connected  with  this  strange  history,  so  that  we  may  ponder  on 
them,  and  give  you  the  benefit  of  the  advice  of  those  who  are 
older  than  yourself,  and  who  by  their  calling  may  be  able  to 
decide  more  correctly  whether  this  supernatural  power  has 
been  exercised  by  a  good  or  evil  intelligence?" 

"The  holy  father  speaks  well,  Philip  Vanderdecken,"  ob- 
served Mathias. 

"  If  it  be  the  work  of  the  Almighty,  to  whom  should  you 
confide,  and  by  whom  should  you  be  guided,  but  by  those 
who  do  His  service  on  this  earth  ?  If  of  the  Evil  One,  to 
whom  but  to  those  whose  duty  and  wish  it  is  to  counteract 
his  baneful  influence  ?  And  reflect,  Philip,  that  this  secret 
may  sit  heavily  on  the  mind  of  your  cherished  wife,  and  may 
bow  her  to  the  grave  as  it  did  your  (I  trust)  sainted  mother. 
With  you,  and  supported  by  your  presence,  she  may  bear  it 
well ;  but  recollect  how  many  are  the  lonely  days  and  nights 
128 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

that  she  must  pass  during  your  absence,  and  how  much  she 
must  require  the  consolation  arid  help  of  others.  A  secret  like 
this  must  be  as  a  gnawing  worm,  and,  strong  as  she  may  be 
in  courage,  must  shorten  her  existence  but  for  the  support 
and  the  balm  she  may  receive  from  the  ministers  of  our  faith. 
It  was  cruel  and  selfish  of  you,  Philip,  to  leave  her,  a  lone 
woman,  to  bear  up  against  your  absence,  and  at  the  same 
time  oppressed  with  so  fatal  a  knowledge." 

"  You  have  convinced  me,  holy  father,"  replied  Philip. 
"  I  feel  that  I  should  before  this  have  made  you  acquainted 
with  this  strange  history.  I  will  now  state  the  whole  of  the 
circumstances  which  have  occurred,  but  with  little  hope  your 
advice  can  help  me  in  a  case  so  difficult,  and  in  a  duty  so 
peremptory,  yet  so  perplexing." 

Philip  then  entered  into  a  minute  detail  of  all  that  had 
passed  from  the  few  days  previous  to  his  mother's  death  until 
the  present  time;  and  when  he  had  concluded,  he  observed — 

"  You  see,  father,  that  I  have  bound  myself  by  a  solemn 
vow — that  that  vow  has  been  recorded  and  accepted  ;  and  it 
appears  to  me  that  I  have  nothing  now  to  do  but  to  follow 
my  peculiar  destiny." 

"  My  son,  you  have  told  us  strange  and  startling  things — 
things  not  of  this  world — if  you  are  not  deceived.  Leave  us 
now.  Father  Mathias  and  I  will  consult  upon  this  serious 
matter  ;  and,  when  we  are  agreed,  you  shall  know  our 
decision/' 

Philip  went  upstairs  to  see  Amine  ;  she  was  still  in  a  deep 
sleep.  He  dismissed  the  servant,  and  watched  by  the  bed- 
side. For  nearly  two  hours  did  he  remain  there,  when  he 
was  summoned  down  to  meet  the  two  priests. 

"We  have  had  a  long  conversation,  my  son,"  said  Father 
Seysen,  "  upon  this  strange  and  perhaps  supernatural  occur- 
rence. I  say  perhaps,  for  I  would  have  rejected  the  frenzied 
communications  of  your  mother  as  the  imaginings  of  a  heated 
brain  ;  and  for  the  same  reason  I  should  have  been  equally 
inclined  to  suppose  that  the  high  state  of  excitement  that 
you  were  in  at  the  time  of  her  death  may  have  disordered 
your  intellect ;  but  as  Father  Mathias  positively  asserts  that 
a  strange,  if  not  supernatural,  appearance  of  a  vessel  did  take 
place  on  his  passage  home,  and  which  appearance  tallies  with 
and  corroborates  the  legend — if  so  I  may  call  it — to  which 
129  l 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

you  have  given  evidence,  I  say  that  it  is  not  impossible,  but 
that  it  is  supernatural." 

"  Recollect  that  the  same  appearance  of  the  Phantom  Ship 
has  been  permitted  to  me  and  to  many  others,"  replied 
Philip. 

"Yes,"  replied  Father  Seysen  ;  "but  who  is  there  alive  of 
those  who  saw  it  but  yourself?  But  that  is  of  little  import- 
ance. We  will  admit  that  the  whols  affair  is  not  the  work 
of  man,  but  of  a  superior  intelligence." 

"Superior,  indeed!"  replied  Philip.  "It  is  the  work  of 
Heaven  !" 

"That  is  a  point  not  so  easily  admitted;  there  is  another 
power  as  well  as  that  which  is  divine — that  of  the  devil! — the 
arch-enemy  of  mankind  !  But  as  that  power,  inferior  to  the 
power  of  God,  cannot  act  without  His  permission,  we  may  in- 
directly admit  that  it  is  the  will  of  Heaven  that  such  signs  and 
portents  should  be  allowed  to  be  given  on  certain  occasions." 

"  Then  our  opinions  are  the  same,  good  father." 

"  Nay,  not  exactly,  my  son.  Elymas  the  sorcerer  was  per- 
mitted to  practise  his  arts — gained  from  the  devil — that  it 
might  be  proved,  by  his  overthrow  and  blindness,  how  inferior 
was  his  master  to  the  Divine  Ruler;  but  it  does  not  therefore 
follow  that  sorcery  generally  was  permitted.  In  this  instance 
it  may  be  true  that  the  evil  one  has  been  permitted  to  exercise 
his  power  over  the  captain  and  crew  of  that  ship,  and,  as  a 
warning  against  such  heavy  offences,  the  supernatural  appear- 
ance of  the  vessel  may  be  permitted.  So  far  we  are  justified 
in  believing.  But  the  great  questions  are,  first,  whether  it  be 
your  father  who  is  thus  doomed  ?  and,  secondly,  how  far  you 
are  necessitated  to  follow  up  this  mad  pursuit,  which,  it  appears 
to  me — although  it  may  end  in  your  destruction — cannot  pos- 
sibly be  the  means  of  rescuing  your  father  from  his  state  of 
unhallowed  abeyance?  Do  you  understand  me,  Philip?" 

"  I  certainly  understand  what  you  would  say,  father ; 
but " 

"  Answer  me  not  yet.  It  is  the  opinion  of  this  holy  father 
as  well  as  of  myself,  that,  allowing  the  facts  to  be  as  you 
suppose,  the  revelations  made  to  you  are  not  from  on  h-'gh, 
but  the  suggestions  of  the  devil,  to  lead  you  into  danger 
and  ultimately  to  death  ;  for,  if  it  were  your  task,  as  you 
suppose,  why  did  not  the  vessel  appear  on  this  last  voyage, 
J30 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

ami  how  can  you  (allowing  that  you  met  her  fifty  times)  have 
communication  with  that,  or  with  those  which  are  but  phantoms 
and  shadows,  things  not  of  this  world?  Now,  what  we  propose 
is,  that  you  should  spend  a  proportion  of  the  money  left  by  your 
father  in  masses  for  the  repose  of  his  soul,  which  your  mother, 
in  other  circumstances,  would  certainly  have  done ;  and  that, 
having  so  done,  you  should  remain  quietly  on  shore  until  some 
new  sign  should  be  given  to  you  which  may  warrant  our  sup- 
posing that  you  are  really  chosen  for  this  strange  pursuit?" 

"  But  my  oath,  father— my  recorded  vow  ?  " 

"  From  that,  my  son,  the  holy  Church  hath  power  to  absolve 
you;  and  that  absolution  you  shall  receive.  You  have  put  your- 
self into  our  hands,  and  by  our  decision  you  must  be  guided. 
If  there  be  wrong,  it  is  we,  and  not  you,  who  are  responsible  ; 
but,  at  present,  let  us  say  no  more.  I  will  now  go  up.  and  so 
soon  as  your  wife  awakens,  prepare  her  for  your  meeting." 

When  Father  Seysen  had  quitted  the  room.  Father  Malhias 
debated  the  matter  with  Philip.  A  long  discussion  ensued,  in 
which  similar  arguments  were  made  use  of  by  the  priest;  and 
Philip,  although  not  convinced,  was  at  least  doubtful  and 
perplexed.  He  left  the  cottage. 

"A  new  sign  —  a  corroborative  sign,"  thought  Philip; 
"Surely  there  have  been  signs  and  wonders  enough.  Still 
it  may  be  true  that  masses  for  my  father's  soul  mav  relieve 
him  from  his  state  of  torture.  At  all  events,  if  they  decide  lor 
me  I  am  not  to  blame.  Well,  then,  let  us  wait  for  a  new  sign 
of  the  divine  will — if  so  it  must  be;"  and  Philip  walked  on, 
occasionally  thinking  on  the  arguments  of  Father  Seysen,  and 
oftener  thinking  of  Amine. 

It  was  now  evening,  and  the  sun  was  fast  descending. 
Philip  wandered  on,  until  at  last  he  arrived  at  the  very  spot 
where  he  had  knelt  down  and  pronounced  his  solemn  vow.  He 
recognised  it:  he  looked  at  the  distant  hills.  The  sun  was  just 
at  the  same  height ;  the  whole  scene,  the  place,  and  the  time 
were  before  him.  Again  Philip  knelt  down,  took  the  relic  from 
his  bosom  and  kissed  it.  He  watched  the  sun — he  bowed 
himself  to  the  earth.  He  waited  for  a  sign ;  but  the  sun  sank 
down,  and  the  veil  of  night  spread  over  the  landscape.  There 
was  no  sign ;  and  Philip  rose  and  walked  home  towards  the 
cottage,  more  inclined  than  before  to  follow  the  suggestions  of 
Father  Ceysen. 

131 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

On  his  return,  Philip  went  softly  upstairs,  and  entered  the 
room  of  Amine,  whom  he  found  awake  and  in  conversation 
with  the  priests.  The  curtain  was  closed,  and  he  was  not  per- 
ceived. With  a  beating  heart  he  remained  near  the  wall  at  the 
head  of  the  bed. 

"  Reason  to  believe  that  my  husband  has  arrived ! "  said 
Amine,  in  a  faint  voice.  "  Oh  tell  me,  why  so  ?" 

"  His  ship  is  arrived  we  know ;  and  one  who  had  seen  her 
said  that  all  were  well." 

"  And  why  is  he  not  here,  then  ?  Who  should  bring  the 
news  of  his  return  but  himself?  Father  Seysen,  either  he  has 
not  arrived  or  he  is  here — I  know  he  must  be,  if  he  is  safe 
and  well.  I  know  my  Philip  too  well.  Say  !  is  he  not  here  ? 
Fear  not,  if  you  say  yes  ;  but  if  you  say  no,  you  kill  me  !  " 

"  He  is  here,  Amine,"  replied  Father  Seysen — "  here  and 
well." 

"  O  God  !  I  thank  you  ;  but  where  is  he  ?  If  he  is  here,  he 
must  be  in  this  room,  or  else  you  deceive  me.  Oh,  this  sus- 
pense is  death  ! " 

"  I  am  here,"  cried  Philip,  opening  the  curtains. 

Amine  rose  with  a  shriek,  held  out  her  arms,  and  then  fell 
senseless  back.  In  a  few  seconds,  however,  she  was  restored, 
and  proved  the  truth  of  the  good  father's  assertion,  "  that  joy 
does  not  kill." 

We  must  now  pass  over  the  few  days  during  which  Philip 
watched  the  couch  of  his  Amine,  who  rapidly  regained  her 
strength.  As  soon  as  she  was  well  enough  to  enter  upon  the 
subject,  Philip  narrated  all  that  had  passed  since  his  departure; 
the  confession  which  he  had  made  to  Father  Seysen,  and  the 
result.  Amine,  too  glad  that  Philip  should  remain  with  her, 
added  her  persuasions  to  those  of  the  priests,  and,  for  some 
little  time,  Philip  talked  no  more  of  going  to  sea. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

weeks  had  flown  away,  and  Amine,  restored  to  health, 
wandered  over  the  country,  hanging  on  the  arm  of  her  adored 
Philip,   or   nestled   by  his   side   in  their  comfortable    home. 
Father  Mathias  still  remained  their  guest ;  the  masses  for  the 
132 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

repose  of  the  soul  of  Vanderdecken  had  been  paid  for,  and 
more  money  had  been  confided  to  the  care  of  Father  Seysen  to 
relieve  the  sufferings  of  the  afflicted  poor.  It  may  be  easily 
supposed  that  one  of  the  chief  topics  of  conversation  between 
Philip  and  Amine  was  the  decision  of  the  two  priests  relative 
to  the  conduct  of  Philip.  He  had  been  absolved  from  his  oath, 
but,  at  the  same  time  that  he  submitted  to  his  clerical  advisers, 
he  was  by  no  means  satisfied.  His  love  for  Amine,  her  wishes 
for  his  remaining  at  home,  certainly  added  weight  to  the  fiat 
of  Father  Seysen;  but,  although  he  in  consequence  obeyed 
it  more  willingly,  his  doubts  of  the  propriety  of  his  conduct 
remained  the  same.  The  arguments  of  Amine — who,  now  that 
she  was  supported  by  the  opinion  of  the  priests,  had  become 
opposed  to  Philip's  departure— even  her  caresses,  with  which 
those  arguments  were  mingled,  were  effective  but  for  the 
moment.  No  sooner  was  Philip  left  to  himself,  no  sooner 
was  the  question,  for  a  time,  dismissed,  than  he  felt  an  inward 
accusation  that  he  was  neglecting  a  sacred  duty.  Amine  per- 
ceived how  often  the  cloud  was  upon  his  brow  ;  she  knew  too 
well  the  cause,  and  constantly  did  she  recommence  her  argu- 
ments and  caresses,  until  Philip  forgot  that  there  was  aught 
but  Amine  in  the  world. 

One  morning,  as  they  were  seated  upon  a  green  br.nk 
picking  the  flowers  that  blossomed  round  them,  and  tossing 
them  away  in  pure  listlessness,  Amine  took  the  opportunity, 
that  she  had  often  waited  for,  to  enter  upon  a  subject  hitherto 
unmentioned. 

"Philip,"  said  she,  "do  you  believe  in  dreams?  think  you 
that  we  may  have  supernatural  communications  by  such 


means  t 

"Of  course  we  may,"  replied  Philip;  "we  have  proof 
abundant  of  it  in  the  holy  writings." 

"  Why,  then,  do  you  not  satisfy  your  scruples  by  a  dream  ?  " 

"  My  dearest  Amine,  dreams  come  unbidden  ;  we  cannot 
command  or  prevent  them — 

"  We  can  command  them,  Philip  ;  say  that  you  would  dream 
upon  the  subject  nearest  to  vour  heart,  and  you  &hall ! '' 

"I  shall?'5 

"Yes!  I  have  that  power,  Philip,  although  I  have  not 
spoken  of  it.  I  had  it  from  my  mother,  with  much  more  that 
of  late  I  have  never  thought  of.  You  know,  Philip,  I  neve* 
13.3 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

say  that  which  is  not.  I  tell  you  that,  if  you  choose,  yot: 
shall  dream  upon  it." 

"  And  to  what  good,  Amine  ?  If  you  have  power  to  makq 
me  dream,  that  power  must  be  from  somewhere.  ' 

"  It  is,  of  course  :  there  are  agencies  you  little  think  of, 
which,  in  my  country,  are  still  called  into  use.  I  have  a 
charm,  Philip,  which  never  fails." 

"  A  charm,  Amine  !  do  you,  then,  deal  in  sorcery  ?  for  such 
powers  cannot  be  from  Heaven." 

"  I  cannot  tell.     I  only  know  the  power  is  given." 

"It  must  be  from  the  devil,  Amine." 

"  And  why  so,  Philip  ?  May  1  not  use  the  argument  of 
your  own  priests,  who  say  '  that  the  power  of  the  devil  is 
only  permitted  to  be  used  by  divine  intelligence,  and  that 
it  cannot  be  used  without  that  permission '  ?  Allow  it,  then, 
to  be  sorcery,  or  what  you  please,  unless  by  Heaven  permitted, 
it  would  fail.  But  I  cannot  see  why  we  should  suppose  that 
it  is  from  an  evil  source.  We  ask  for  a  warning  in  a  dream 
to  guide  our  conduct  in  doubtful  circumstances.  Surely,  the 
evil  one  would  rather  lead  us  wrong  than  right ! " 

"  Amine,  we  may  be  warned  in  a  dre'im,  as  the  patriarchs 
were  of  old  ;  bat  to  use  mystic  or  unholy  charms  to  procure 
a  vision,  is  making  a  compact  with  the  devil." 

"  Which  compact  the  devil  could  not  fulfil  if  not  permitted 
by  a  higher  power.  Philip,  your  reasoning  is  false.  We  are 
told  that,  by  certain  means,  duly  observed,  we  may  procure 
the  dreams  we  wish.  Our  observance  of  these  means  Is 
certainly  the  least  we  can  attend  to,  to  prove  our  sincerity. 
Forgive  me,  Philip,  but  are  not  observances  as  necessary  in 
your  religion — which  I  have  embraced  ?  Are  we  not  told 
that  the  omission  of  the  mere  ceremony  of  water  to  the 
infant  will  turn  all  future  chance  of  happiness  to  misery 
eternal ?  " 

Philip  answered  not  for  some  time.  "  I  am  afraid,  Amine," 
said  he  at  last,  in  a  low  tone  ;  "  I " 

"  I  fear  nothing,  Philip,  when  my  intentions  are  good," 
replied  Amine.  "  I  follow  certain  means  to  obtain  an  end. 
What  is  that  end  ?  It  is  to  find  out  (if  possible)  what  may 
be  the  will  of  Heaven  in  this  perplexing  case.  If  it  should 
be  through  the  agency  of  the  devil  -what  then  ?  He  be- 
comes my  servant,  and  not  my  master  ;  he  is  permitted  by 
134 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

Heaven  to  act  against  himself;"   and  Amine's  eyes  darted 
fire,  as  she  thus  boldly  expressed  herself. 

"  Did  your  mother  often  exercise  her  art  ? "  inquired 
Philip,  after  a  pause. 

"  Not  to  my  knowledge  ;  but  it  was  said  that  she  was  most 
expert.  She  died  young  (as  you  know),  or  1  should  have 
known  much  more.  Think  you,  Philip,  that  this  world  is 
solely  peopled  by  such  dross  as  we  are  ?— things  of  clay — 
perishable  and  corruptible  ?  Lords  over  beasts  —  and  our- 
selves but  little  better.  Have  you  not,  from  your  own  sacred 
writings,  repeated  acknowledgments  and  proofs  of  higher 
intelligences  mixing  up  with  mankind  and  acting  here  below  ? 
Why  should  what  was  then  not  be  now  ?  and  what  more 
harm  is  there  to  apply  for  their  aid  now  than  a  few  thousand 
years  ago  ?  Why  should  you  suppose  that  they  were  per- 
mitted on  the  earth  then — and  not  permitted  now  ?  What 
has  become  of  them  ?  Have  they  perished  ?  have  they  been 
ordered  back — to  where — to  heaven  ?  If  to  heaven — the 
world  and  mankind  have  been  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  devil 
and  his  agents.  Do  you  suppose  that  we,  poor  .mortals,  have 
been  thus  abandoned  ?  I  tell  you  plainly,  I  think  not.  We 
no  longer  have  the  communications  with  those  intelligences 
that  we  once  had,  because,  as  we  become  more  enlightened, 
we  become  more  proud,  and  seek  them  not ;  but  that  they 
still  exist — a  host  of  good  against  a  host  of  evil,  invisibly 
opposing  each  other— is  my  conviction.  But  tell  me,  Philip, 
do  you  in  your  conscience  believe  that  all  that  has  been 
revealed  to  you  is  a  mere  dream  of  the  imagination  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  believe  so,  Amine  :  you  know  well  I  wish  I 
could." 

"  Then  is  my  reasoning  proved  :  for  if  such  communications 
can  be  made  to  you,  why  cannot  others  ?  You  cannot  tell  by 
what  agency  ;  your  priests  say  it  is  that  of  the  evil  one  ;  you 
think  it  is  from  on  high.  By  the  same  rule  who  is  to  decide 
from  whence  the  dream  shall  come  ?" 

"  'Tis  true,  Amine  ;  but  are  you  certain  of  your  power  ?  " 

"  Certain  of  this  :  that  if  it  pleases  superior  intelligence  to 
communicate  with  you,  that  communication  may  be  relied 
upon.  Either  you  will  not  dream,  but  pass  away  the  hours 
in  deep  sleep,  or  what  you  dream  will  be  connected  with 
the  question  at  issue." 

135 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"Then,  Amine,  I  have  made  up  my  mind— I  will  dream: 
for  at  present  my  mind  is  racked  by  contending  and  per- 
plexing doubts.  I  would  know  whether  I  am  right  or  wrong. 
This  night  your  art  shall  be  employed." 

«  Not  this  night,  nor  yet  to-morrow  night,  Philip.  Think 
you  one  moment  that,  in  proposing  this,  I  serve  you  against 
my  own  wishes  ?  I  feel  as  if  the  dream  will  decide  against 
me,  and  that  you  will  be  commanded  to  return  to  your  duty  ; 
for  I  tell  you  honestly,  I  think  not  with  the  priests ;  but  I 
am  your  wife,  Philip,  and  it  is  my  duty  that  you  should  not 
be  deceived.  Having  the  means,  as  I  suppose,  to  decide 
your  conduct,  I  offer  them.  Promise  me  that,  if  I  do  this,  you 
will  grant  me  a  favour  which  I  shall  ask  as  my  reward." 

"  It  is  promised,  Amine,  without  its  being  known,"  replied 
Philip,  rising  from  the  turf;  "and  now  let  us  go  home." 

We  observed  that  Philip,  previous  to  his  sailing  in  the 
Batavia,  had  invested  a  large  proportion  of  his  funds  in  Dutch 
East  India  Stock  :  the  interest  of  the  money  was  more  than 
sufficient  for  the  wants  of  Amine,  and,  on  his  return,  he  found 
that  the  funds  left  in  her  charge  had  accumulated.  After 
paying  to  Father  Seysen  the  sums  for  the  masses  and  for 
the  relief  of  the  poor  there  was  a  considerable  residue,  and 
Philip  had  employed  this  in  the  purchase  of  more  shares  in 
the  India  Stocks. 

The  subject  of  their  conversation  was  not  renewed.  Philip 
was  rather  averse  to  Amine  practising  those  mystical  arts, 
which,  if  known  to  the  priests,  would  have  obtained  for  her, 
in  all  probability,  the  anathema  of  the  Church.  He  could 
not  but  admire  the  boldness  and  power  of  Amine's  reason- 
ings, but  still  he  was  averse  to  reduce  them  into  practice. 
The  third  day  had  passed  away,  and  no  more  had  been  said 
upon  the  subject. 

Philip  retired  to  bed,  and  was  soon  fast  asleep ;  but  Amine 
slept  not.  So  soon  as  she  was  convinced  that  Philip  would 
not  be  awakened,  she  slipped  from  the  bed  and  dressed 
herself.  She  left  the  room,  and  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
returned,  bringing  in  her  hand  a  small  brazier  of  lighted 
charcoal,  and  two  small  pieces  of  parchment,  rolled  up  and 
fixed  by  a  knot  to  the  centre  of  a  narrow  fillet.  They  exactly 
resembled  the  phylacteries  that  were  once  worn  by  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  were  similarly  applied.  One  of  them  she  gently 
136 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

bound  upon  the  forehead  of  her  husband,  and  the  other  upon 
his  left  arm.  She  threw  perfumes  into  the  brazier,  and  as  the 
form  of  her  husband  was  becoming  indistinct,  from  the  smoke 
which  filled  the  room,  she  muttered  a  few  sentences,  waved 
over  him  a  small  sprig  of  some  shrub  which  she  held  in  her 
white  hand,  and  then  closing  the  curtains  and  removing  the 
brazier,  she  sat  down  by  the  side  of  the  bed. 

"  If  there  be  harm,"  thought  Amine,  "at  least  the  deed  is 
not  his — 'tis  mine ;  they  cannot  say  that  he  has  practised  arts 
that  are  unlawful  and  forbidden  by  his  priests.  On  my  head 
be  it!"  And  there  was  a  contemptuous  curl  on  Amine's 
beautiful  arched  lip,  which  did  not  say  much  for  her  devotion 
to  her  new  creed. 

Morning  dawned,  and  Philip  still  slumbered.  "'Tis 
enough,"  said  Amine,  who  had  been  watching  the  rising  of 
the  sun,  as  she  beheld  his  upper  limb  appear  above  the  horizon. 
Again  she  waved  her  arm  over  Philip,  holding  the  sprig  in 
her  hand,  and  cried,  "  Philip,  awake  ! " 

Philip  started  up,  opened  his  eyes,  and  shut  them  again  to 
avoid  the  glare  of  the  broad  daylight,  rested  upon  his  elbow, 
and  appeared  to  be  collecting  his  thoughts. 

"  Where  am  I  ?"  exclaimed  he.  "In  my  own  bed?  Yes!" 
He  passed  his  hand  across  his  forehead,  and  felt  the  scroll. 
"What  is  this?"  continued  he,  pulling  it  ( ft',  and  examining 
it.  "And  Amine,  where  is  she?  Good  Heavens,  what  a 
dream!  Another?"  cried  he,  perceiving  the  scroll  tied  to 
his  arm.  "  I  see  it  now.  Amine,  this  is  your  doing." 
And  Philip  threw  himself  down,  and  buried  his  face  in  the 
pillow. 

Amine,  in  the  meantime,  had  slipped  into  bed,  and  had 
taken  her  place  by  Philip's  side.  "  Sleep,  Philip,  dear : 
sleep  !  "  said  she,  putting  her  arms  round  him  ;  "  we  will  talk 
when  we  wake  again." 

"  Are  you  there,  Amine  ? "  replied  Philip,  confused.  "  I 
thought  I  was  alone  ;  I  have  dreamed —  And  Philip 

again  was  fast  asleep  before  he  could  complete  his  sen- 
tence. Amine,  too,  tired  with  watching,  slumbered,  and  Mas 


happy. 
Fath 


Bather  Mathias  had  to  wait  a  long  while  for  his  breakfast 
that  morning;  it  was  not  till  two  hours  later  than  usual  that 
Philip  and  Amine  made  their  appearance. 
137 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

u  Welcome,  my  children/'  said  he.     "  You  are  late." 

"We  are,  father,"  replied  Amine ;  "for  Philip  slept,  and  I 
watched  till  break  of  day." 

"  He  hath  not  been  ill,  I  trust,"  replied  the  priest. 

"  No,  not  ill ;  but  I  could  not  sleep,"  replied  Amine. 

"Then  didst  thou  do  well  to  pass  the  night,  as  I  doubt  not 
thou  hast  done,  my  child,  in  holy  watchings." 

Philip  shuddered  ;  he  knew  that  the  watching,  had  its 
cause  been  known,  would  have  been,  in  the  priest's  opinion, 
anything  but  holy.  Amine  quickly  replied — 

"  I  have,  indeed,  communed  with  higher  powers,  as  far  as 
my  poor  intellect  has  been  able." 

"The  blessing  of  our  holy  Church  upon  thee,  my  child  !" 
said  the  old  man,  putting  his  hand  upon  her  head;  "and  on 
thee  too,  Philip." 

Philip,  confused,  sat  down  to  the  table  ;  Amine  was  col- 
lected as  ever.  She  spoke  little,  it  is  true,  and  appeared  to 
commune  with  her  own  thoughts. 

As  soon  as  the  repast  was  finished,  the  old  priest  took  up 
his  breviary,  and  Amine  beckoning  to  Philip,  they  went  out 
together.  They  walked  in  silence  until  they  arrived  at  the 
green  spot  where  Amine  had  first  proposed  to  him  that  she 
should  use  her  mystic  power.  She  sat  down,  and  Philip,  fully 
awar.e  of  her  purpose,  took  his  seat  by  her  in  silence. 

"  Philip,"  said  Amine,  taking  his  hand,  and  looking  earnestly 
in  his  face,  "  last  night  you  dreamed." 

"I  did  indeed,  Amine,"  replied  Philip  gravely. 

"  Tell  me  your  dream  :  for  it  will  be  for  me  to  expound  it." 

"I  fear  it  needs  but  little  exposition,  Amine.  All  I  would 
know  is,  from  what  intelligence  the  dream  has  been  received." 

"Tell  me  your  dream,"  replied  Amine  calmly. 

"  I  thought,"  replied  Philip  mournfully,  "  that  I  was  sailing 
as  captain  of  a  vessel  round  the  Cape  ;  the  sea  was  calm  and 
the  breeze  light ;  I  was  abaft ;  the  sun  went  down,  and  the 
stars  were  more  than  usually  brilliant ;  the  weather  was 
warm,  and  I  lay  down  on  my  cloak,  with  my  face  to  the 
heavens,  watching  the  gems  twinkling  in  the  sky  and  the 
occasionally  falling  meteors.  I  thought  that  I  fell  asleep,  and 
awoke  with  a  sensation  as  if  sinking  down.  I  looked  around 
me ;  the  masts,  the  rigging,  the  hull  of  the  vessel — all  had 
disappeared,  and  I  was  floating  by  myself  upon  a  large, 
138 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

beautifully  shaped  shell  on  the  wide  waste  of  waters.  I  was 
alarmed,  and  afraid  to  move,  lest  I  should  overturn  my  frail 
bark  and  perish.  At  last  I  perceived  the  fore-part  of  the 
shell  pressed  down,  as  if  a  weight  wei  e  hanging  to  it ;  and 
soon  afterwards  a  small,  white  hand,  which  grasped  it.  I 
remained  motionless,  and  would  have  called  out  that  my  little 
bark  would  sink,  but  I  could  not.  Gradually  a  figure  raised 
itself  from  the  waters,  and  leaned  with  both  arms  over  the 
fore-part  of  the  shell,  where  I  first  had  seen  but  the  hand.  It 
was  a  female,  in  form  beautiful  to  excess ;  the  skin  was  white 
as  driven  snow  ;  her  long  loose  hair  covered  her,  and  the  ends 
floated  in  the  water ;  her  arms  were  rounded  and  like  ivory. 
She  said,  in  a  soft,  sweet  voice — 

"  '  Philip  Vanderdecken,  what  do  you  fear  ?  Have  you  not 
a  charmed  life  ? ' 

" '  I  know  not,'  replied  I,  '  whether  my  lile  be  charmed  or 
not ;  but  this  I  know,  that  it  is  in  danger.' 

"  '  In  danger ! '  replied  she  ;  '  it  might  have  been  in  danger 
when  you  were  trusting  to  the  frail  works  of  men,  which  the 
waves  love  to  rend  to  fragments — your  good  ships,  as  you  call 
them,  which  but  float  about  upon  sufferance  ;  but  where  can 
be  the  danger  when  in  a  mermaid's  shell,  which  the  mountain 
wave  respects,  ?nd  upon  which  the  cresting  surge  dare  not 
throw  its  spray  ?  Philip  Vanderdecken,  you  have  come  to 
seek  your  father  ! ' 

" '  I  have/  replied  I ;  '  is  it  not  the  will  of  Heaven  ?  ' 

"  '  It  is  your  destiny — and  destiny  rules  all  above  and  below. 
Shall  we  seek  him  together  ?  This  shell  is  mine  ;  you  know 
not  how  to  navigate  it ;  shall  I  assist  you  ?  ' 

"  '  Will  it  bear  us  both  ? ' 

"'You  will  see,'  replied  she,  laughing,  as  she  sank  down 
from  the  fore  part  of  the  shell,  and  immediately  afterwards 
appeared  at  the  side,  which  was  not  more  than  three  inches 
above  the  water.  To  my  alarm,  she  raised  herself  up,  and  sat 
upon  the  edge,  but  her  weight  appeared  to  have  no  effect.  As 
soon  as  she  was  seated  in  this  way  — for  her  feet  still  remained 
in  the  water — the  shell  moved  rapidly  along,  and  each  moment 
increased  its  speed,  with  no  other  propelling  power  than  that 
of  her  volition. 

"  '  Do  you  fear  now,  Philip  Vanderdecken?' 

" '  No  ! '  replied  I. 

139 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"She  passed  her  hands  across  her  forehead,  threw  aside  the 
tresses  which  had  partly  concealed  her  face,  and  said — 

"'Then  look  at  me.' 

"  I  looked,  Amine,  and  I  beheld  you  !  " 

"Me !"  observed  Amine,  with  a  smile  upon  her  lips. 

"  Yes,  Amine,  it  was  you.  I  called  you  by  your  name,  and 
threw  my  arms  round  you.  I  felt  that  I  could  remain  with 
you,  and  sail  about  the  world  for  ever." 

"  Proceed,  Philip,"  said  Amine  calmly. 

"  I  thought  we  ran  thousands  and  thousands  of  miles — we 
passed  by  beautiful  islands,  set  like  gems  on  the  ocean  bed  ;  at 
one  time  bounding  against  the  rippling  current,  at  others  close 
to  the  shore — skimming  on  the  murmuring  wave  which  rippled 
on  the  sand,  whilst  the  cocoa-tree  on  the  beach  waved  to  the 
cooling  breeze. 

" '  It  is  not  in  smooth  seas  that  your  father  must  be  sought,' 
said  she,  'we  must  try  elsewhere.' 

"  By  degrees  the  waves  rose,  until  at  last  they  were  raging 
in  their  fury,  and  the  shell  was  tossed  by  the  tumultuous 
waters  ;  but  still  not  a  drop  entered,  and  we  sailed  in  security 
over  billows  which  would  have  swallowed  up  the  proudest 
vessel. 

"'  Do  you  fear  now,  Philip?'  said  you  to  me. 

" '  No,'  replied  I ;  '  with  you,  Amine,  I  fear  nothing.' 

"'We  are  now  off  the  Cape  again,'  said  she;  'and  here 
you  may  find  your  father.  Let  us  look  well  round  us,  for  if 
we  meet  a  ship  it  must  be  his.  None  but  the  Phantom  Ship 
could  swim  in  a  gale  like  this.' 

"Away  we  flew  over  the  mountainous  waves — skimming 
from  crest  to  crest  between  them,  our  little  bark  sometimes 
wholly  out  of  the  water  ;  now  east,  now  west,  north,  south,  in 
every  quarter  of  the  compass,  changing  our  course  each  minute. 
We  passed  over  hundreds  of  miles  at  last  we  saw  a  vessel, 
tossed  by  the  furious  gale. 

" '  There/  cried  she,  pointing  with  her  finger,  '  there  is 
your  father's  vessel,  Philip.' 

"  Rapidly  did  we  approach — they  saw  us  from  on  board,  and 
brought  the  vessel  to  the  wind.  We  were  alongside  -  the 
gangway  was  clearing  away — for  though  no  boat  could  have 
boarded,  our  shell  was  safe.  I  looked  up.  I  saw  my  father, 
Amine !  Yes,  saw  him,  and  heard  him  as  he  gave  his  orders. 
140 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

I  pulled  the  relic  from  my  bosom,  and  held  it  out  to  him. 
He  smiled  as  he  stood  on  the  gunnel,  holding  on  by  the  main 
shrouds.  I  was  just  rising  to  mount  on  board,  for  they  had 
handed  to  me  the  man-ropes,  when  there  was  a  loud  yell,  and 
a  man  jumped  from  the  gangway  into  the  shell.  You  shrieked, 
slipped  from  the  side,  and  disappeared  under  the  wave,  and  in 
a  moment  the  shell,  guided  by  the  man  who  had  taken  your 
place,  flew  away  from  the  vessel  with  the  rapidity  of  thought. 
I  felt  a  deadly  chill  pervade  my  frame.  I  turned  round  to 
look  at  my  new  companion  ;  it  was  the  pilot  Schriften  !  the 
one-eyed  wretch  who  was  drowned  when  we  were  wrecked  in 
Table  Bay  ! 

"  <  No  !  no  !  not  yet ' '  cried  he. 

"  In  an  agony  of  despair  and  rage,  I  hurled  him  off  his  seat 
on  the  shell,  and  he  floated  on  the  wild  waters. 

" '  Philip  Vanderdecken,'  said  he,  as  he  swam,  '  we  shall 
meet  again  !' 

"  I  turned  away  my  head  in  disgust,  when  a  wave  filled  my 
bark,  and  down  it  sank.  1  was  struggling  under  the  water, 
sinking  still  deeper  and  deeper,  but  without  pain,  when  I 
awoke. 

"  Now,  Amine,"  said  Philip,  after  a  pause,  "  what  think  you 
of  my  dream  ?" 

"  Does  it  not  point  out  that  I  am  your  friend,  Philip,  and 
that  the  pilot  Schriften  is  your  enemy  ?  " 

"  I  grant  it ;  but  he  is  dead." 

"  Is  that  so  certain  ?  " 

"  He  hardly  could  have  escaped  without  my  knowledge." 

"  That  is  true,  but  the  dream  would  imply  otherwise. 
Philip,  it  is  my  opinion  that  the  only  way  in  which  tiiis  dream 
is  to  be  expounded  is — that  you  remain  on  shore  for  the 
present.  The  advice  is  that  of  the  priests.  In  either  case 
you  require  some  further  intimation.  In  your  dream  /  was 
your  safe  guide — be  guided  now  by  me  again." 

"  Be  it  so,  Amine.  If  your  strange  art  be  in  opposition  to 
our  holy  faith,  you  expound  the  dream  in  conformity  with  the 
advice  of  its  ministers." 

"  I  do.      And  now,  Philip,  let  us  dismiss  the  subject  from 
our  thoughts.     Should  the  time  come,  your  Amine  will  not 
persuade  you  from  your  duty;  but  recollect,  you  have  promised 
to  grant  one  favour  when  I  ask  it." 
141 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  I  have  ;  say,  then,  Araine,  what  may  be  your  wish  ?  " 
"  Oh!  nothing  at  present.     I  have  no  wish  on  earth  but  what 
is  gratified.     Have  I  not  you,  dear  Philip  ? "  replied  Amine, 
fondly  throwing  herself  on  her  husband's  shoulder. 


CHAPTER  XV 

IT  was  about  three  months  after  this  conversation  that  Amine 
and  Philip  were  again  seated  upon  the  mossy  bank  which  we 
have  mentioned,  and  which  had  become  their  favourite  resort. 
Father  Mathias  had  contracted  a  great  intimacy  with  Father 
Seysen,  and  the  two  priests  were  almost  as  inseparable  as  were 
Philip  and  Amine.  Having  determined  to  await  a  summons 
previous  to  Philip's  again  entering  upon  his  strange  and  fearful 
task,  and  happy  in  the  possession  of  each  other,  the  subject 
was  seldom  revived.  Philip,  who  had,  on  his  return,  expressed 
his  wish  to  the  Directors  of  the  Company  fbr  immediate 
employment,  and,  if  possible,  to  have  the  command  of  a  vessel, 
had,  since  that  period,  taken  no  further  steps,  nor  had  any 
communication  with  Amsterdam. 

"I  am  fond  of  this  bank,  Philip,"  said  Amine;  "I  appear 
to  have  formed  an  intimacy  with  it.  It  was  here,  if  you 
recollect,  that  we  debated  the  subject  of  the  lawfulness  of 
inducing  dreams  ;  and  it  was  here,  dear  Philip,  that  you  told 
me  your  dream,  and  that  I  expounded  it." 

"You  did  so,  Amine  ;  but  if  you  ask  the  opinion  of  Father 
Seysen,  you  will  find  that  he  would  give  rather  a  strong  deci- 
sion against  you — he  would  call  it  heretical  and  damnable." 

"  Let  him,  if  he  pleases.      I  have  no  objection  to  tell  him." 

"  I  pray  not,  Amine ;  let  the  secret  remain  with  ourselves 
only." 

"Think  you  Father  Mathias  would  blame  me?" 

"  I  certainly  do." 

"  Well,  I  do  not ;  there  is  a  kindness  and  liberality  about 
the  old  man  that  I  admire.  I  should  like  to  argue  the 
question  with  him." 

As  Amine  spoke,  Philip  felt  something  touch  his  shoulder, 
and  a  sudden  chill  ran  through  his  frame.  In  a  moment  his 
ideas  reverted  to  the  probable  cause  :  he  turned  round  his 
14-2 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

• 

head,  and,  to  his  amazement,  beheld  the  (supposed  to  be 
drowned)  pilot  of  the  Tcr  Schilling,  the  one-eyed  Schriften, 
who  stood  behind  him,  with  a  letter  in  his  hand.  The 
sudden  appearance  of  this  malignant  wretch  induced  Philip 
to  exclaim,  "  Merciful  Heaven  !  is  it  possible  ?  " 

Amine,  who  had  turned  her  head  round  at  the  exclamation 
of  Philip,  covered  up  her  face,  and  burst  into  tears.  It  was 
not  fear  that  caused  this  unusual  emotion  on  her  part,  but 
the  conviction  that  her  husband  was  never  to  be  at  rest  but 
in  the  grave. 

"  Philip  Vanderdecken,"  said  Sehriften,  "  he  !  he  !  I've  a 
letter  for  you — it  is  from  the  Company." 

Philip  took  the  letter,  but,  previous  to  opening  it,  he  fixed 
his  eyes  upon  Schriften.  "  I  thought,"  said  he,  "  that  you 
were  drowned  when  the  ship  was  wrecked  in  False  Bay. 
How  did  you  escape  ?  " 

"  How  did  I  escape  ?  "  replied  Schriften.  "  Allow  me  to 
ask,  how  did  you  escape  ?" 

"  I  was  thrown  up  by  the  waves/'  replied  Philip  ;  "  but — 

"But,"  interrupted  Schriften,  "he!  he!  the  waves  ought 
not  to  have  thrown  me  up." 

"And  why  not,  pray  ?     I  did  not  say  that," 

"  No !  but  I  presume  you  wish  it  had  been  so  ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  I  escaped  in  the  same  way  that  you  did — I  was 
thrown  up  by  the  waves — he  '  he  !  but  1  can't  wait  here.  I 
have  done  my  bidding." 

"  Stop,"  replied  Philip  ;  "answer  me  one  question.  Do  you 
sail  in  the  same  vessel  with  me  this  time  ?  " 

"  I'd  rather  be  excused,"  replied  Schriften  ;  "  I  am  not 
looking  for  the  Phantom  Ship,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken ; " 
and  with  this  reply,  the  little  man  turned  round,  and  went 
away  at  a  rapid  pace. 

"  Is  not  this  a  summons,  Amine  f "  said  Philip,  after  a 
pause,  still  holding  the  letter  in  his  hand,  with  the  seal 
unbroken. 

"  I  will  not  deny  it,  dearest  Philip.  It  is  most  surely  so; 
the  hateful  messenger  appears  to  have  risen  from  the  grave 
that  he  might  deliver  it.  Forgive  me,  Philip ;  but  I  was 
taken  by  surprise.  I  will  not  again  annoy  you  with  a 
woman's  weakness." 

"My  poor  Amine,"  replied  Philip  mournfuHv.  "Alas! 
U3 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

• 

why  did  I  not  perform  my  pilgrimage  alone  ?  It  was  selfish 
of  me  to  link  you  with  so  much  wretchedness,  and  join  you 
with  me  in  bearing  the  fardel  of  never-ending  anxiety  and 
suspense." 

"  And  who  should  bear  it  with  you,  my  dearest  Philip,  if 
it  is  not  the  wife  of  your  bosom  ?  You  little  know  my  heart, 
if  you  think  I  shrink  from  the  duty.  No,  Philip,  it  is  a 
pleasure,  even  in  its  most  acute  pains  ;  for  I  consider  that 
I  am,  by  partaking  with,  relieving  you  of  a  portion  of  your 
sorrow,  and  I  feel  proud  that  I  am  the  wife  of  one  who  has 
been  selected  to  be  so  peculiarly  tried.  But,  dearest,  no 
more  of  this:  You  must  read  the  letter." 

Philip  did  not  answer.  He  broke  the  seal,  and  found  that 
the  letter  intimated  to  him  that  he  was  appointed  as  first 
mate  to  the  Vrow  Kalerina,  a  vessel  which  sailed  with  the  next 
fleet ;  and  requesting  he  would  join  as  quickly  as  possible,  as 
she  would  soon  be  ready  to  receive  her  cargo.  The  letter, 
which  was  from  the  secretary,  further  informed  him  that, 
after  this  voyage,  he  might  be  certain  of  having  the  com- 
mand of  a  vessel  as  captain,  upon  conditions  which  would 
be  explained  when  he  called  upon  the  Board. 

"  I  thought,  Philip,  that  you  had  requested  the  command 
of  a  vessel  for  this  voyage,"  observed  Amine  mournfully. 

"I  did,"  replied  Philip  ;  "but  not  having  followed  up  my 
application,  it  appears  not  to  have  been  attended  to.  It  has 
been  my  own  fault." 

"And  now  it  is  too  late." 

"  Yes,  dearest,  most  assuredly  so :  but  it  matters  not ; 
I  would  as  willingly,  perhaps  rather,  sail  this  voyage  as  first 
mate." 

"  Philip,  I  may  as  well  speak  now.  That  I  am  disappointed, 
I  must  confess  ;  I  fully  expected  that  you  would  have  had  the 
command  of  a  vessel,  and  yon  may  remember  that  I  exacted  a 
promise  from  you,  on  this  very  bunk  upon  which  we  now  sit,  at 
the  time  that  you  told  me  your  dream.  That  promise  I  shall 
still  exact,  and  I  now  tell  you  what  I  had  intended  to  ask.  It 
was,  my  dear  Philip,  permission  to  sail  with  you.  With  you, 
I  care  for  nothing.  I  can  be  happy  under  every  privation  or 
danger;  but  to  be  left  alone  for  so  long,  brooding  over  my 
painful  thoughts,  devoured  by  suspense,  impatient,  restless, 
and  incapable  of  applying  to  any  one  thing—that,  dear  Philip, 
144 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

is  the  height  of  misery,  and  that  is  what  I  feel  when  you  are 
absent.  Recollect,  I  have  your  promise,  Philip.  As  captain, 
you  have  the  means  of  receiving  your  wife  on  board.  I  am 
bitterly  disappointed  in  being  left  this  time ;  do,  therefore, 
to  a  certain  degree,  console  me  by  promising  that  I  shall 
sail  with  you  next  voyage,  if  Heaven  permit  your  return." 

"  I  promise  it,  Amine,  since  you  are  so  earnest.  I  can 
refuse  you  nothing ;  but  I  have  a  foreboding  that  yours  and 
my  happiness  will  be  wrecked  for  ever.  I  am  not  a  visionary, 
but  it  does  appear  to  me  that,  strangely  mixed  up  as  1  am, 
at  once  with  this  world  and  the  next,  some  little  portion 
of  futurity  is  opened  to  me.  I  have  given  my  promise, 
Amine,  but  from  it  I  would  fain  be  released." 

"  And  if  ill  do  come,  Philip,  it  is  our  destiny.  Who  can 
avert  fate?" 

"  Amine,  we  are  free  agents,  and  to  a  certain  extent  are 
permitted  to  direct  our  own  destinies." 

"  Ay,  so  would  Father  Seysen  fain  have  made  me  believe  ; 
but  what  he  said  in  support  of  his  assertion  was  to  me  incom- 
prehensible. And  yet  he  said  that  it  was  a  part  of  the 
Catholic  faith.  It  may  be  so — I  am  unable  to  understand 
many  other  points.  I  wish  your  faith  were  made  more 
simple.  As  yet  the  good  man — for  good  he  really  is— has 
only  led  me  into  doubt." 

ts  Passing  through  doubt,  you  will  arrive  at  conviction, 
Amine." 

"  Perhaps  so,"  replied  Amine  ;  "but  it  appears  to  me  that 
I  am  as  yet  but  on  the  outset  of  my  journey.  But  come, 
Philip,  let  us  return.  You  must  to  Amsterdam,  and  1  will 
go  with  you.  After  your  lal>ours  of  the  day.  at  least  until  you 
sail,  your  Amine's  smiles  must  still  enliven  you.  Is  it  not  so?" 

"Yes,  dearest,  I  would  have  proposed  it.  I  wonder  much 
how  Schriften  could  come  here.  I  did  not  see  his  body,  it 
is  certain,  but  his  escape  is  to  me  miraculous.  Why  did  he 
not  appear  when  saved  ?  where  could  he  have  been  ?  What 
think  you,  Amine  ?  " 

"What  I  have  long  thought,  Philip.  He  is  a  ghoul  with 
an  evil  eye,  permitted  for  some  cause  to  walk  the  earth  in 
human  fonn  ;  and  is  certainly,  in  some  way,  connected  with 
your  strange  destiny.  If  it  requires  anything  to  convince 
me  of  the  truth  of  all  that  has  passed,  it  is  his  appearance— 
145  K 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  wretched  Afrit !  Oh  that  I  had  my  mother's  powers ! 
— but  I  forget,  it  displeases  you,  Philip,  that  I  ever  talk  of 
such  things,  and  I  am  silent." 

Philip  replied  not;  and,  absorbed  in  their  own  medita- 
tions, they  walked  back  in  silence  to  the  cottage.  Although 
Philip  had  made  up  his  own  mind,  he  immediately  sent  the 
Portuguese  priest  to  summon  Father  Seysen,  that  he  might 
communicate  with  them  and  take  their  opinion  as  to  the 
summons  he  had  received.  Having  entered  into  a  fresh 
detail  of  the  supposed  death  of  Schriften,  and  his  reappear- 
ance as  a  messenger,  he  then  left  the  two  priests  to  consult 
together,  and  went  upstairs  to  Amine.  It  was  more  than 
two  hours  before  Philip  was  called  down,  and  Father  Seysen 
appeared  to  be  in  a  state  of  great  perplexity. 

"  My  son,"  said  he,  "  we  are  much  perplexed.  We  had 
hoped  that  our  ideas  upon  this  strange  communication  were 
correct,  and  that,  allowing  all  that  you  have  obtained  from 
your  mother  and  have  seen  yourself  to  have  been  no  deception, 
still  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  evil  one,  and  if  so,  our  prayers 
and  masses  would  have  destroyed  this  power.  We  advised  you 
to  wait  another  summons,  and  you  have  received  it.  The 
letter  itself  is  of  course  nothing,  but  the  reappearance  of  the 
bearer  of  the  letter  is  the  question  to  be  considered.  Tell  me, 
Philip,  what  is  your  opinion  on  this  point  ?  It  is  possible  he 
might  have  been  saved — why  not  as  well  as  yourself?" 

"  I  acknowledge  the  possibility,  father,"  replied  Philip ; 
"  he  may  have  been  cast  on  shore  and  have  wandered  in 
another  direction.  It  is  possible,  although  anything  but 
probable ;  but  since  you  ask  me  my  opinion,  I  must  say 
candidly  that  I  consider  he  is  no  earthly  messenger — nay,  I 
am  sure  of  it.  Thnt  he  is  mysteriously  connected  with  my 
destiny  is  certain.  But  who  he  is,  and  what  he  is,  of  course 
I  cannot  tell." 

"  Then,  my  son,  we  have  come  to  the  determination,  in  this 
instance,  not  to  advise.  You  must  act  now  upon  your  own 
responsibility  and  your  own  judgment.  In  what  way  soever 
you  may  decide,  we  shall  not  blame  you.  Our  prayers  shall 
be  that  Heaven  may  still  have  you  in  its  holy  keeping." 

"  My  decision,  holy  father,  is  to  obey  the  summons." 

"  Be  it  so,  my  son  ;  something  may  occur  which  may  assist 
to  work  nut  the  mystery— a  mystery  which  I  acknowledge  to 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

be  beyond  my  comprehension,  and  of  too  painful  a  nature  for 
me  to  dwell  upon." 

Philip  said  no  more,  for  he  perceived  that  the  priest  was 
not  at  all  inclined  to  converse.  Father  Mathias  took  this 
opportunity  of  thanking  Philip  for  his  hospitality  and  kind- 
ness, and  stated  his  intention  of  returning  to  Lisbon  by  the 
first  opportunity  that  might  offer. 

In  a  few  days  A  mine  and  Philip  took  leave  of  the  priests, 
and  quitted  for  Amsterdam — Father  Seysen  taking  charge 
of  the  cottage  until  Amine's  return.  On  his  arrival  Philip 
called  upon  the  Directors  of  the  Company,  who  promised  him 
a  ship  on  his  return  from  the  voyage  he  was  about  to  enter 
upon,  making  a  condition  that  he  should  become  part  owner 
of  the  vessel.  To  this  Philip  consented,  and  then  went  down 
to  visit  the  f'row  Katerina,  the  ship  to  which  he  had  been 
appointed  as  first  mate.  She  was  still  unrigged,  and  the  fleet 
•was  not  expected  to  sail  for  two  months.  Only  part  of  the 
crew  were  on  board,  and  the  captain,  who  lived  at  Dort,  had 
not  yet  arrived. 

So  far  as  Philip  could  judge,  the  I'roiv  Katerina  was  a  very 
inferior  vessel ;  she  was  larger  than  many  of  the  others,  but 
old  and  badly  constructed  ;  nevertheless,  as  she  had  been 
several  voyages  to  the  Indies  and  had  returned  in  safety,  it 
was  to  be  presumed  that  she  would  not  have  been  taken  up 
by  the  Company  if  they  had  not  been  satisfied  as  to  her  sea- 
worthiness. Having  given  a  few  directions  to  the  men 
who  were  on  board,  Philip  returned  to  the  hostelry  where 
he  had  secured  apartments  for  himself  and  Amine. 

The  next  day,  as  Philip  was  superintending  the  fitting  of 
the  rigging,  the  captain  of  the  I'roir  Katerina  arrived,  and 
stepping  on  board  of  her  by  the  plank  which  communicated 
with  the  quay,  the  first  thing  that  he  did  was  to  run  to  the 
mainmast  and  embrace  it  with  both  arms,  although  there 
was  no  small  portion  of  tallow  on  it  to  smear  the  cloth  of  his 
coat.  "  O  my  dear  Vrow,  my  Katerina  ' "  cried  he,  as  if 
he  were  speaking  to  a  female.  "  How  do  you  do  ?  I'm  glad 
to  see  you  again  ;  you  have  been  quite  well,  I  hope  ?  You 
do  not  like  being  laid  up  in  this  way.  Never  mind,  my  dear 
creature  !  you  shall  soon  be  handsome  again." 

The  name  of  this  personage,  who  thus  made  love  to  his 
Vessel,  was  Wilhelm  Barentz.  He  was  a  young  man,  ap- 
117 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

parently  not  thirty  years  of  age,  of  diminutive  stature  and 
delicate  proportions.  His  face  was  handsome,  but  womanish. 
His  movements  were  rapid  and  restless,  and  there  was  that 
appearance  in  his  eye  which  would  have  warranted  the  sup- 
position that  he  was  a  little  flighty,  even  if  his  conduct  had 
not  fully  proved  the  fact. 

No  sooner  were  the  ecstasies  of  the  captain  over  than  Philip 
introduced  himself  to  him,  and  informed  him  of  his  appoint- 
ment. "  Oh  !  you  are  the  first  mate  of  the  Vrow  Katcrina. 
Sir,  you  are  a  very  fortunate  man.  Next  to  being  captain  of 
her,  first  mate  is  the  most  enviable  situation  in  the  world." 

"  Certainly  not  on  account  of  her  beauty,"  observed  Philip  ; 
"  she  may  have  many  other  good  qualities." 

"  Not  on  account  of  her  beauty !  Why,  sir,  I  say  (as  my 
father  has  said  before  me,  and  it  was  his  Vron  before  it  was 
mine)  that  she  is  the  handsomest  vessel  in  the  world.  At 
present  you  cannot  judge  ;  and  besides  being  the  handsomest 
vessel,  she  has  every  good  quality  under  the  sun." 

"I  am  glad  to  hear  it,  sir,"  replied  Philip;  "it  proves  that 
one  should  never  judge  by  appearances.  But  is  she  not  very 
old." 

"Old!  not  more  than  twenty-eight  years — just  in  her 
prime.  Stop,  my  dear  sir,  till  you  see  her  dancing  on  the 
waters,  and  then  you  will  do  nothing  all  day  but  discourse 
with  me  upon  her  excellence,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  we 
shall  have  a  very  happy  time  together." 

"  Provided  the  subject  be  not  exhausted,"  replied  Philip. 

"  That  it  never  will  be  on  my  part :  and  allow  me  to 
observe,  Mr.  Vanderdecken,  that  any  officer  who  finds  fault 
with  the  Vrow  Katerina  quarrels  with  me.  I  am  her  knight, 
and  I  have  already  fought  three  men  in  her  defence — I  trust 
I  shall  not  have  to  fight  a  fourth." 

Philip  smiled  :  he  thought  that  she  was  not  worth  fighting 
for;  but  he  acted  upon  the  suggestion,  and  from  that  time 
forward  he  never  ventured  to  express  an  opinion  against  the 
beautiful  Vrow  Katcrina. 

The  crew  were  soon  complete,  the  vessel  rigged,  her  sails 
bent,  and  she  was  anchored  in  the  stream,  surrounded  by  the 
other  ships  composing  the  fleet  about  to  be  despatched.  The 
cargo  was  then  received  on  board,  and,  as  soon  as  her  hold 
was  full,  there  came,  to  Philip's  great  vexation,  an  order  to 
148 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

receive  on  board  150  soldiers  and  other  passengers,  many  of 
whom  were  accompanied  by  their  wives  and  families.  Philip 
worked  hard,  for  the  captain  did  nothing  but  praise  the 
vessel,  and  at  last  they  had  embarked  everything,  and  the 
fleet  was  ready  to  sail. 

It  was  now  time  to  part  with  Amine,  who  had  remained  at 
the  hostelry,  and  to  whom  Philip  had  dedicated  every  spare 
moment  that  he  could  obtain.  The  fleet  was  expected  to  sail 
in  two  days,  and  it  was  decided  that  on  the  morrow  they 
should  part.  Amine  was  cool  and  collected.  She  felt  con- 
vinced that  she  should  see  her  husband  again,  and  with  that 
feeling  she  embraced  him  as  they  separated  on  the  beach, 
and  he  stepped  into  the  boat  in  which  he  was  to  be  pulled 
on  board. 

"Yes,"  thought  Amine,  as  she  watched  the  form  of  her 
husband,  as  the  distance  between  them  increased — "yes,  I 
know  that  we  shall  meet  again.  It  is  not  this  voyage  which 
is  to  be  fatal  to  you  or  me  ;  but  I  have  a  dark  foreboding  that 
the  next,  in  which  I  shall  join  you,  will  separate  us  for  ever 
— in  which  way  1  know  not— but  it  is  destined.  The  priests 
talk  of  free-will.  Is  it  free-will  which  takes  him  away  from 
me  ?  Would  he  not  rather  remain  on  shore  with  me  ?  Yes. 
But  he  is  not  permitted,  for  he  must  fulfil  his  destiny.  Free- 
will !  Why,  if  it  were  not  destiny  it  were  tyranny.  I  feel, 
and  have  felt,  as  if  these  priests  are  my  enemies ;  but  why 
I  know  not :  they  are  both  good  men,  and  the  creed  they 
teach  is  good.  Goodwill  and  charity,  love  to  all,  forgiveness 
of  injuries,  not  judging  others.  All  this  is  good  ;  and  yet 
my  heart  whispers  to  me  that —  -  But  the  boat  is  alongside, 
and  Philip  is  climbing  up  the  vessel.  Farewell,  farewell, 
my  dearest  husband.  I  would  I  were  a  man  !  No,  no  !  'tis 
better  as  it  is." 

Amine  watched  till  she  could  no  longer  perceive  Philip,  and 
then  walked  slowly  to  the  hostelry.  The  next  day,  when  she 
arose,  she  found  that  the  fleet  had  sailed  at  daylight,  and  the 
channel,  which  had  been  so  crowded  with  vessels,  was  now 
untenanted. 

"  He  is  gone,"  muttered  Amine ;  "  now  for  many  months 
of  patient,  calm  enduring — I  cannot  say  of  living;  for  I  exist 
but  in  his  presence." 

J49 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"WE  must  leave  Amine  to  her  solitude,  and  follow  the  for- 
tunes  of  Philip.  The  fleet  had  sailed  with  a  flowing  sheet, 
and  bore  gallantly  down  the  Zuyder  Zee  ;  but  they  had  not 
been  under  way  an  hour  before  the  Vrotv  Katerina  was  left  a 
mile  or  two  astern.  Mynheer  Barentz  found  fault  with  the 
setting  and  trimming  of  the  sails,  and  with  the  man  at  the 
helm,  who  was  repeatedly  changed ;  in  short,  with  everything 
but  his  dear  Vroiv  Katerina ;  but  all  would  not  do ;  she  still 
dropped  astern,  and  proved  to  be  the  worst-sailing  vessel  in 
the  fleet. 

"  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,"  said  he  at  last,  "  the  Fro;/',  as 
my  father  used  to  say,  is  not  so  very  fast  before  the  wind. 
Vessels  that  are  good  on  a  wind  seldom  are :  but  this  I  will 
say,  that  in  every  other  point  of  sailing,  there  is  no  other 
vessel  in  the  fleet  equal  to  the  I'rotv  Katerina." 

"  Besides,"  observed  Philip,  who  perceived  how  anxious  his 
captain  was  on  the  subject,  "  we  are  heavily  laden,  and  have 
so  many  troops  on  deck." 

The  fleet  cleared  the  sands,  and  were  then  close  hauled, when 
the  /Vow  Katerina  proved  to  sail  even  more  slowly  than  before. 

"  When  we  are  so  rcn/  close-hauled,"  observed  Mynheer 
Barentz,  "  the  J'row  does  not  do  so  well  ;  but  a  point  free,  and 
then  you  will  see  how  she  will  show  her  stern  to  the  whole 
fleet.  She  is  a  fine  vessel,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  is  she  not?" 

"  A  very  fine,  roomy  vessel,"  replied  Philip,  which  was  all 
that,  in  conscience,  he  could  say. 

The  fleet  sailed  on,  sometimes  on  a  wind,  sometimes  free, 
but  let  the  point  of  sailing  be  what  it  might,  the  Vrwr  Katerina 
was  invariably  astern,  and  the  fleet  had  to  heave-to  at  sunset 
to  enable  her  to  keep  company  ;  still  the  captain  continued  to 
declare  that  the  point  of  sailing  on  which  they  happened  to  be, 
was  the  only  point  in  which  the  I' row  Katerina  was  deficient. 
Unfortunately,  the  vessel  had  other  points  quite  as  bad  as  her 
sailing ;  she  was  crank,  leaky,  and  did  not  answer  the  helm 
well,  but  Mynheer  Barentz  was  not  to  be  convinced.  He 
adored  his  ship,  and  like  all  men  desperatelv  in  love,  he  could 
see  no  fault  in  his  mistress.  But  others  were  not  so  blind,  and 
150 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  admiral,  finding  the  voyage  so  much  delayed  by  the  bad 
sailing  of  one  vessel,  determined  to  leave  her  to  find  her  way 
by  herself  so  soon  as  they  had  passed  the  Cape.  He  was; 
however,  spared  the  cruelty  of  deserting  her,  for  a  heavy  gale 
came  on  which  dispersed  the  whole  fleet,  and  on  the  second 
day  the  good  ship  I'rotv  Katerina  found  herself  alone,  labour- 
ing heavily  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  leaking  so  much  as  to 
require  hands  constantly  at  the  pumps,  and  drifting  before  the 
gale  as  fast  to  leeward  almost  as  she  usually  sailed.  For  a 
week  the  gale  continued,  and  each  day  did  her  situation 
become  more  alarming.  Crowded  with  troops,  encumbered 
with  heavy  stores,  she  groaned  and  laboured,  while  whole  seas 
washed  over  her,  and  the  men  could  hardly  stand  at  the 
pumps.  Philip  was  active,  and  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost, 
encouraging  the  worn-out  men,  securing  where  aught  had 
given  way,  and  little  interfered  with  by  the  captain,  who  was 
himself  no  sailor. 

"Well,"  observed  the  captain  to  Philip,  as  they  held  on  by 
the  belaying-pins,  "you'll  acknowledge  that  she  is  a  fine 
weatherly  vessel  in  a  gale — is  she  not  ?  Softly,  my  beauty, 
softly,"  continued  he,  speaking  to  the  vessel,  as  she  plunged 
heavily  into  the  waves,  and  every  timber  groaned.  "  Softly, 
my  dear,  softly  !  How  those  poor  devils  in  the  other  ships 
must  be  knocking  about  now !  Heh  !  Mynheer  Vaiulerdecken, 
we  have  the  start  of  them  this  time  :  they  must  be  a  terrible 
long  way  down  to  leeward.  Don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

"  I  really  cannot  pretend  to  say,"  replied  Philip,  smiling. 

"  Why,  there's  not  one  of  them  in  sight.  Yes  !  by  heavens, 
there  is  !  Look  on  our  lee  beam.  I  see  one  now.  Well,  she 
must  be  a  capital  sailer,  at  all  events  :  look  there,  a  point 
abaft  the  beam.  Mercy  on  me  !  how  stiff  she  must  be  to 
carry  such  a  press  of  canvas  !  " 

Philip  had  already  seen  her.  It  was  a  large  ship  on  a  wind, 
and  on  the  same  tack  as  they  were.  In  a  gale  in  which  no 
vessel  could  carry  the  topsails,  the  Vrow  Katerina  being  under 
close-reefed  foresails  and  staysails,  the  ship  seen  to  leeward 
was  standing  under  a  press  of  sail — topgallant-sail,  royals,  fly- 
ing-jib, and  every  stitch  of  canvas  which  could  be  set  in  a 
light  breeze.  The  waves  were  running  mountains  high,  bear- 
ing each  minute  the  J'rotv  Katerina  down  to  the  gunwale  ; 
and  the  ship  seen  appeared  not  to  be  affected  by  the  tumul- 
151 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

tuous  waters,  but  sailed  steadily  and  smoothly  on  an  even 
keel.  At  once  Philip  knew  it  must  be  the  Phantom  Ship,  in 
which  his  father's  doom  was  being  fulfilled. 

"Very  odd,  is  it  not?"  observed  Mynheer  Barentz. 

Philip  felt  such  an  oppression  on  his  chest  that  he  could 
not  reply.  As  he  held  on  with  one  hand,  he  covered  up  his 
eyes  with  the  other. 

But  the  seamen  had  now  seen  the  vessel,  and  the  legend  was 
too  well  known.  Many  of  the  troops  had  climbed  on  deck 
when  the  report  was  circulated,  and  all  eyes  were  now  fixed 
upon  the  supernatural  vessel ;  when  a  heavy  squall  burst  over 
the  Vrow  Katcrina,  accompanied  with  peals  of -thunder  and 
heavy  rain,  rendering  it  so  thick  that  nothing  could  be  seen. 
In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  it  cleared  away,  and  when  they  looked 
to  leeward  the  stranger  was  no  longer  in  sight. 

"  Merciful  Heaven  !  she  must  have  been  upset,  and  has  gone 
down  in  the  squall,"  said  Mynheer  Barentz.  "  I  thought  as 
much,  carrying  such  a  press  of  sail.  There  never  was  a  ship 
that  could  carry  more  than  the  J'roiv  Katcrina.  It  was  mad- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  captain  of  that  vessel  ;  but  I  suppose  he 
wished  to  keep  up  with  us.  Heh,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken  ?  " 

Philip  did  not  reply  to  these  remarks,  which  fully  proved 
the  madness  of  his  captain.  He  felt  that  his  ship  was 
doomed,  and  when  he  thought  of  the  numbers  on  bo  ird  who 
might  be  sacrificed,  he  shuddered.  After  a  pause  he  said  : 

"Mynheer  Barentz,  this  gale  is  likely  to  continue,  and  the 
best  ship  that  ever  was  built  cannot,  in  my  opinion,  stand 
such  weather.  I  should  advise  that  we  bear  up,  and  run 
back  to  Table  Bay  to  refit.  Depend  upon  it,  we  shall  find 
the  whole  fleet  there  before  us." 

"  Never  fear  for  the  good  ship  Vrow  Kalcrina,"  replied  the 
captain;  "see  what  weather  she  makes  of  it." 

"  Cursed  bad,"  observed  one  of  the  seamen,  for  the  seamen 
had  gathered  near  to  Philip  to  hear  what  his  advice  might 
be.  "If  I  had  known  that  she  was  such  an  old,  crazy  beast, 
I  never  would  have  trusted  myself  on  board.  Mynheer 
Vanderdecken  is  right ;  we  must  back  to  Table  Bay  ere  worse 
befall  us.  That  ship  to  leeward  has  given  us  warning — she 
is  not  seen  for  nothing — ask  Mr.  Vanderdecken,  captain  ;  he 
knows  that  well,  for  he  is  a  sailor." 

This  appeal  to  Philip  made  him  start ;  it  was,  however, 
152 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

made  without  any  knowledge  of  Philip's  interest  in  the 
Phantom  Ship. 

"  I  must  say,"  replied  Philip,  "  that,  whenever  I  have  fallen 
in  with  that  vessel,  mischief  has  ever  followed." 

"  Vessel !  why,  what  was  there  in  that  vessel  to  frighten 
you  ?  She  carried  too  much  sail,  and  she  has  gone  down." 

"  She  never  goes  down,"  replied  one  of  the  seamen. 

"  No,  no  !  "  exclaimed  many  voices  ;  "  but  we  shall,  if  we 
do  not  run  bark." 

"  Pooh !  nonsense !  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  what  say 
you  ?  " 

"  I  have  already  stated  my  opinion,"  replied  Philip,  who 
was  anxious,  if  possible,  to  see  the  ship  once  more  in  port, 
"that  the  best  thing  we  can  do  is  to  bear  up  for  Table  Bay." 

"And,  captain,"  continued  the  old  seaman  who  had  just 
spoken,  "  we  are  all  determined  that  it  shall  be  so,  whether 
you  like  it  or  not;  so  up  with  the  helm,  my  hearty,  and 
Mynheer  Vanderdecken  will  trim  the  sails." 

"  Why  !  what  is  this  ?  "  cried  Captain  Barents.  "  A  mutiny 
on  board  of  the  Vrow  Katerina  ?  Impossible  !  The  Vrow 
Kater'uia  !  the  best  ship,  the  fastest  in  the  whole  fleet !  " 

"The  dullest  old  rotten  tub,"  cried  one  of  the  .seamen. 

"What  !  "  cried  the  captain  ;  "  what  do  I  hear?  Mynheer 
Vanderdecken,  confine  that  lying  rascal  for  mutiny." 

"  Pooh  !  nonsense  !  he's  mad,"  replied  the  old  seaman. 
"  Never  mind  him  ;  come,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  we  will 
obey  you  ;  but  the  helm  must  be  up  immediately." 

The  captain  stormed,  but  Philip,  by  acknowledging  the 
superiority  of  his  vessel,  at  the  same  tiree  that  he  blamed  the 
seamen  for  their  panic,  pointed  out  to  him  ihe  necessity  of 
compliance,  and  Mynheer  Barentz  at  last  consented.  The 
heim  was  put  up,  the  sails  trimmed,  and  the  Vrow  Kntcniia 
rolled  heavily  before  the  gale.  Towards  the  evening  the 
weather  moderated,  and  the  sky  cleared  up ;  both  sea  and 
wind  subsided  fast ;  the  leaking  decreased,  and  Philip  was  in 
hopes  that  in  a  day  or  two  they  would  arrive  safely  in  the  Bay. 

As  they  steered  their  course,  so  did  the  wind  gradually 
decrease,  until  at  last  it  fell  calm  ;  nothing  remained  of  the 
tempest  but  a  long,  heavy  swell  which  set  to  the  westward, 
and  before  which  the  Vrow  Katerina  was  gradually  drifting. 
This  was  a  respite  to  the  worn-out  seamen,  and  also  to  the 
153 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

troops  and  passengers,  who  had  been  cooped  below  or 
drenched  on  the  main-deck. 

The  upper  deck  was  crowded  ;  mothers  basked  in  the  warm 
sun,  with  their  children  in  their  arms ;  the  rigging  was  filled 
with  the  wet  clothes,  which  were  hung  up  to  dry  on  every  part 
of  the  shrouds  ;  and  the  seamen  were  busily  employed  in 
repairing  the  injuries  of  the  gale.  By  their  reckoning,  they 
were  not  more  than  fifty  miles  from  Table  Bay,  and  each 
moment  they  expected  to  see  the  land  to  the  southward  of  it. 
All  was  again  mirth,  and  every  one  on  board,  except  Philip, 
considered  that  danger  was  no  more  to  be  apprehended. 

The  second  mate,  whose  name  was  Krantz,  was  an  active, 
good  seaman,  and  a  great  favourite  with  Philip,  who  knew  that 
he  could  trust  to  him,  and  it  was  on  the  afternoon  of  this  day 
that  he  and  Philip  were  walking  together  on  the  deck. 

"  What  think  you,  Vanderdecken,  of  the  strange  vessel  we 
saw  ?  " 

*'  I  have  seen  her  before,  Krantz  ;  and — 

"  And  what  ?  " 

"  Whatever  vessel  I  have  been  in  when  I  have  seen  her,  that 
vessel  has  never  returned  into  port — others  tell  the  same  tale." 

"  Is  she,  then,  the  ghost  of  a  vessel  ?  " 

"  I  am  told  so ;  and  there  are  various  stories  afloat  con- 
cerning her :  but  of  this  I  assure  you — that  I  am  fully  per- 
suaded that  some  accident  will  happen  before  we  reach  port, 
although  everything  at  this  moment  appears  so  calm,  and  our 
port  is  so  near  at  hand." 

"  You  are  superstitious,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "  and  yet  I  must 
say  that,  to  me,  the  appearance  was  not  like  a  reality.  No 
vessel  could  carry  such  sail  in  the  gale  ;  but  yet  there  are 
madmen  afloat  who  will  sometimes  attempt  the  most  absurd 
things.  If  it  was  a  vessel,  she  must  have  gone  down,  for 
when  it  cleared  up  she  was  not  to  be  seen.  I  am  not  very 
credulous,  and  nothing  but  the  occurrence  of  the  consequences 
which  you  anticipate  will  make  me  believe  that  there  was 
anything  supernatural  in  the  affair." 

"  Well !  I  shall  not  be  sorry  if  the  event  proves  me  wrong," 
replied  Philip ;  "  but  I  have  my  forebodings — we  are  not  in 
port  yet." 

"  No !  but  we  are  but  a  trifling  distance  from  it,  and  there 
is  every  prospect  of  r  continuance  of  fine  weather." 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"There  is  no  saying  from  what  quarter  the  danger  may 
come,"  replied  Philip ;  "  we  have  other  things  to  fear  than 
the  violence  of  the  gale." 

"True,"  replied  Krantz;  "but,  nevertheless,  don't  let  us 
croak.  Notwithstanding  all  you  say,  I  prophesy  that  in  two 
days,  at  the  farthest,  we  are  safely  anchored  in  Table  Bay." 

The  conversation  here  dropped,  and  Philip  was  glad  to  be 
left  alone.  A  melancholy  had  seized  him — a  depression  of 
spirits  even  greater  than  he  had  ever  felt  before.  He  leaned 
over  the  gangway  and  watched  the  heaving  of  the  sea. 

"  Merciful  Heaven  !  "  ejaculated  he,  "  be  pleased  to  spare 
this  vessel ;  let  not  the  wail  of  women,  the  shrieks  of  the  poor 
children,  now  embarked,  be  heard  ;  the  numerous  body  of 
men  trusting  to  her  planks — let  them  not  be  sacrificed  for  my 
father's  crimes."  And  Philip  mused.  "  The  ways  of  Heaven 
are  indeed  mysterious,"  thought  he.  "Why  should  others 
suffer  because  my  father  has  sinned  ?  And  yet,  is  it  not  so 
everywhere  ?  How  many  thousands  fall  on  the  field  of  battle 
in  a  war  occasioned  by  the  ambition  of  a  king,  or  the  influence 
of  a  woman !  How  many  millions  have  been  destroved  for 
holding  a  different  creed  of  faith  !  He  works  in  His  own  way, 
leaving  us  to  wonder  and  to  doubt." 

The  sun  had  set  before  Philip  had  quitted  the  gangway 
and  gone  down  below.  Commending  himself,  and  those  em- 
barked with  him,  to  the  care  of  Providence,  he  at  last  fell 
asleep  ;  but  before  the  bell  was  struck  eight  times,  to  announce 
midnight,  he  was  awakened  by  a  rude  shove  of  the  shoulder, 
and  perceived  Krantz,  who  had  the  first  watch,  standing 
close  beside  him. 

"  By  the  Heaven  above  us,  Vanderdecken,  you  have  pro- 
phesied right !  Up — quick  !  The  ship's  on^fire  !  " 

"On  fire!"  exclaimed  Vanderdecken,  jumping  out  of  his 
berth— "where?" 

"  The  main-hold." 

"  I  will  up  immediately,  Krantz.  In  the  meantime,  keep 
the  hatches  on  and  rig  the  pumps." 

In  less  than  a  minute  Philip  was  on  deck,  where  he  found 
Captain  Barentz,  who  had  also  been  informed  of  the  case  by 
the  second  mate.  In  a  few  words  all  was  explained  by 
Krantz  :  there  was  a  strong  smell  of  fire  proceeding  from  the 
main-hold ;  and  on  removing  one  of  the  hatches,  which  he 
155 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

had  done  without  calling  for  any  assistance,  from  a  knowledge 
of  the  panic  it  would  create,  he  found  that  the  hold  was  full 
of  smoke  ;  he  had  put  it  on  again  immediately,  and  had  only 
made  it  known  to  Philip  and  the  captain. 

"Thanks  for  your  presence  of  mind,"  replied  Philip  ;  "we 
have  now  time  to  reflect  quietly  on  what  is  to  be  done.  If 
the  troops  and  the  poor  women  and  children  knew  their 
danger,  their  alarm  would  have  much  impeded  us :  but  how 
could  she  have  taken  fire  in  the  main-hold  ?  " 

"  I  never  heard  of  the  Vrorv  Katerina  taking  fire  before," 
observed  the  captain  ;  "  I  think  it  is  impossible.  It  must  be 
some  mistake — she  is " 

"  I  now  recollect  that  we  have  in  our  cargo  several  cases  of 
vitriol  in  bottles,"  interrupted  Philip.  "  In  the  gale  they 
must  have  been  disturbed  and  broken.  I  kept  them  above 
all,  in  case  of  accident:  this  rolling  gunwale  under  for  so  long 
a  time  must  have  occasioned  one  of  them  to  fetch  way." 

"That's  it,  depend  upon  it,"  observed  Krantz. 

"  I  did  object  to  receive  them,  stating  that  they  ought  to 
go  out  in  some  vessel  which  was  not  so  encumbered  with 
troops,  so  that  they  might  remain  on  the  main-deck ;  but  • 
they  replied  that  the  invoices  were  made  out  and  could  not 
be  altered.  But  now  to  act.  My  idea  is,  to  keep  the  hatches 
on,  so  as  to  smother  it  if  possible." 

"Yes,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "and  at  the  same  time  cut  a  hole 
in  the  deck  just  large  enough  to  admit  the  hose,  and  pump 
as  much  water  as  we  can  down  into  the  hold." 

"  You  are  right,  Krantz ;  send  for  the  carpenter,  and  set 
him  to  work.  I  will  turn  the  hands  up,  and  speak  to  the  men. 
I  smell  the  fire  now  very  strong ;  there  is  no  time  to  lose.  If 
we  can  only  keep  the  troops  and  the  women  quiet  we  may  do 
something." 

The  hands  were  turned  up,  and  soon  made  their  appear- 
ance on  deck,  wondering  why  they  were  summoned.  The 
men  had  not  perceived  the  state  of  the  vessel,  for,  the 
hatches  having  been  kept  on,  the  little  smoke  that  issued 
ascended  the  hatchway,  and  did  not  fill  the  lower  deck. 

a  My  lads,"  said  Philip,  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  we  "have 
reason  to  suspect  that  there  is  some  danger  of  fire  in  the 
main-hold." 

"  I  smell  it ! "  cried  one  of  the  seamen, 
156 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  So  do  I,"  cried  several  others,  with  every  show  of  alarm, 
and  moving  away  as  if  to  go  below. 

"  Silence,  and  remain  where  you  are,  my  men.  Listen  to 
what  I  say :  if  you  frighten  the  troops  and  passengers,  we 
shall  do  nothing ;  we  must  trust  to  ourselves ;  there  is  no 
time  to  be  lost.  Mr.  Krantz  and  the  carpenter  are  doing  all 
that  can  be  done  at  present ;  and  now,  my  men,  do  me  the 
favour  to  sit  down  on  the  deck,  every  one  of  you,  while  I 
tell  you  what  we  must  do." 

This  order  of  Philip's  was  obeyed,  and  the  effect  was  excel-' 
lent  :  it  gave  the  men  time  to  compose  themselves  after  the 
first  shock  ;  for,  perhaps,  of  all  shocks  to  the  human  frame, 
there  is  none  which  creates  a  greater  panic  than  the  first 
intimation  of  fire  on  board  of  a  vessel — a  situation,  indeed, 
pitiable,  when  it  is  considered  that  you  have  to  choose  be- 
tween the  two  elements  seeking  your  destruction.  Philip  did 
not  speak  for  a  minute  or  two.  He  then  pointed  out  to  the 
men  the  danger  of  their  situation,  what  were  the  measures 
which  he  and  Krantz  had  decided  upon  taking,  and  how 
necessary  it  was  that  all  should  be  cool  and  collected.  He 
also  reminded  them  that  they  had  but  little  powder  in  the 
magazine,  which  was  far  from  the  site  of  the  fire,  and  could 
easily  be  removed  and  thrown  overboard  ;  and  that,  if  the 
fire  could  not  be  extinguished,  they  had  a  quantity  of  spars 
on  deck  to  form  a  raft,  which,  with  the  boats,  would  re- 
ceive all  on  board,  and  that  they  were  but  a  short  distance 
from  land. 

Philip's  address  had  the  most  beneficial  effects;  the  men  rose 
up  when  he  ordered  them ;  one  portion  went  down  to  the 
magazine,  and  handed  up  the  powder,  which  was  passed  along 
and  thrown  overboard ;  another  went  to  the  pumps ;  and 
Krantz,  coming  up,  reported  the  hole  to  have  been  cut  in  the 
planking  of  the  deck  above  the  main-hold  :  the  hose  was 
fixed,  and  a  quantity  of  water  soon  poured  down,  but  it  was 
impossible  that  the  danger  could  be  kept  secret.  The  troops 
were  sleeping  on  the  deck,  and  the  very  employment  of  the 
seamen  pointed  out  what  had  occurred,  even  if  the  smoke, 
which  now  increased  very  much,  and  filled  the  lower-deck, 
had  not  betrayed  it.  In  a  few  minutes  the  alarm  of  Fire  ! 
was  heard  throughout  the  vessel,  and  men,  women,  and 
children  were  seen,  some  hurrying  on  their  clothes,  some 
157 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

running  frightened  about  the  decks,  some  shrieking,  some 
praying;  and  the  confusion  and  terror  were  hardly  to  be 
described. 

The  judicious  conduct  of  Philip  was  then  made  evident ; 
had  the  sailors  been  awakened  by  the  appalling  cry,  they  would 
have  been  equally  incapable  of  acting  as  were  the  troops  and 
passengers.  All  subordination  would  have  ceased :  some 
would  have  seized  the  boats,  and  left  the  majority  to  perish ; 
others  would  have  hastened  to  the  spirit-room,  and  by  their 
drunkenness  added  to  the  confusion  and  horror  of  the  scene ; 
nothing  would  have  been  effected,  and  almost  all  would  in  all 
probability  have  perished  miserably.  But  this  had  been  pre- 
vented by  the  presence  of  mind  shown  by  Philip  and  the 
second  mate,  for  the  captain  was  a  cipher ;  not  wanting  in 
courage,  certainly,  but  without  conduct  or  a  knowledge  of 
his  profession.  The  seamen  continued  steady  to  their  duty, 
pushing  the  soldiers  out  of  the  way  as  they  performed  their 
allotted  tasks ;  and  Philip  perceiving  this  went  down  below, 
leaving  Krantz  in  charge ;  and  by  reasoning  with  the  most 
collected,  by  degrees  he  brought  the  majority  of  the  troops 
to  a  state  of  comparative  coolness. 

The  powder  had  been  thrown  overboard,  and  another  hole 
having  been  cut  in  the  deck  on  the  other  side,  the  other  pump 
was  rigged,  and  double  the  quantity  of  water  poured  into  the 
hold  ;  but  it  was  evident  to  Philip  that  the  combustion  in- 
creased. The  smoke  and  steam  now  burst  through  the  inter- 
stices of  the  hatchways  and  the  holes  cut  in  the  deck,  with  a 
violence  that  proved  the  extent  of  the  fire  which  raged  below, 
and  Philip  thought  it  advisable  to  remove  all  the  women  and 
children  to  the  poop  and  quarter-deck  of  the  ship,  desiring  the 
husbands  of  the  women  to  stay  with  them.  It  was  a  melan- 
choly sight,  and  the  tears  stood  in  Philip's  eyes  as  he  looked 
upon  the  group  of  females — some  weeping  and  straining  their 
children  to  their  bosoms ;  some  more  quiet  and  more  collected 
than  the  men:  the  elder  children  mute,  or  crying  because  their 
mothers  cried,  and  the  younger  ones,  unconscious  of  danger, 
playing  with  the  first  object  which  attracted  their  attention,  or 
smiling  at  their  parents.  The  officers  commanding  the  troops 
were  two  ensigns  newly  entered,  and  very  young  men,  ignorant 
of  their  duty  and  without  any  authority — for  men  in  cases  of 
extreme  danger  will  not  obey  those  who  are  more  ignorant 
158 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

than  themselves — and,  at  Philip's  request,  they  remained  with 
and  superintended  the  women  and  children. 

So  soon  as  Philip  had  given  his  orders  that  the  women  and 
children  should  be  properly  clothed  (which  many  of  them  were 
not)  he  went  again  forward  to  superintend  the  labour  of  the 
seamen,  who  already  began  to  show  symptoms  of  fatigue 
from  the  excess  of  their  exertions ;  but  many  of  the  soldiers 
now  offered  to  work  at  the  pumps,  and  their  services  were 
willingly  accepted.  Their  efforts  were  in  vain.  In  about 
half-an-hour  more  the  hatches  were  blown  up  with  a  loud 
noise,  and  a  column  of  intense  and  searching  flame  darted 
up  perpendicularly  from  the  hold,  high  as  the  lower  mast- 
head. Then  was  heard  the  loud  shriek  of  the  women,  who 
pressed  their  children  in  agony  to  their  breasts,  as  the  sea- 
men and  soldiers  who  had  been  working  the  pumps,  in  their 
precipitate  retreat  from  the  scorching  flames,  rushed  aft,  and 
fell  among  the  huddled  crowd. 

"  Be  steady,  my  lads — steady,  my  good  fellows/'  exclaimed 
Philip;  "there  is  no  danger  yet.  Recollect  we  have  our  boats 
and  raft,  and  although  we  cannot  subdue  the  fire,  and  save  the 
vessel,  still  we  may,  if  you  are  cool  and  collected,  not  only  save 
ourselves,  but  every  one — even  the  poor  infants,  who  now 
appeal  to  you  as  men  to  exert  yourselves  in  their  behalf. 
Come,  come,  my  lads,  let  us  do  our  duty — we  have  the  means 
of  escape  in  our  power  if  we  lose  no  time.  Carpenter,  get  your 
axes,  and  cut  away  the  boom-lashings.  Now,  my  men, 
let  us  get  our  boats  out,  and  make  a  raft  for  these  poor 
women  and  children  ;  we  are  not  ten  miles  from  the  land. 
Krantz,  see  to  the  boats  with  the  starboard  watch  :  larboard 
watch  with  me,  to  launch  over  the  booms.  Gunners,  take 
any  of  the  cordage  you  can,  ready  for  lashing.  Come,  my 
lads,  there  is  no  want  of  light  —  we  can  work  without 
lanterns." 

The  men  obeyed  :  as  Philip,  to  encourage  them,  had  almost 
jocularly  remarked  (for  a  joke  is  often  well-timed,  when  ap- 
parently on  the  threshold  of  eternity),  there  was  no  want  of 
light.  The  column  of  fire  now  ascended  above  the  main-top 
—licking  with  its  forky  tongue  the  top-mast  rigging — and 
embracing  the  mainmast  in  its  folds  ;  and  the  loud  roar  with 
which  it  ascended  proved  the  violence  and  rapidity  of  the 
combustion  below,  and  how  little  time  there  was  to  be  lost. 
159 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

The  lower  and  main  decks  were  now  so  filled  with  smoke  that 
no  one  could  remain  there  :  some  few  poor  fellows,  sick  in 
their  cots,  had  long  been  smothered,  for  they  had  been  for- 
gotten. The  swell  had  much  subsided,  and  there  was  not  a 
breath  of  wind :  the  smoke  which  rose  from  the  hatchways 
ascended  straight  up  in  the  air,  which,  as  the  vessel  had  lost 
all  steerage  way,  was  fortunate.  The  boats  were  soon  in  the 
water,  and  trusty  men  placed  in  them :  the  spars  were 
launched  over,  arranged  by  the  men  in  the  boats,  and 
lashed  together.  All  the  gratings  were  then  collected,  and 
firmly  fixed  upon  the  spars  for  the  people  to  sit  upon  ;  and 
Philip's  heart  was  glad  at  the  prospect  which  he  now  had 
of  saving  the  numbers  which  were  embarked. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

_t)UT  their  difficulties  were  not  surmounted — the  fire  now 
had  communicated  to  the  main-deck,  and  burst  out  of  the 
port-holes  amidships — and  the  raft  which  had  been  forming 
alongside  was  obliged  to  be  drifted  astern,  where  it  was  more 
exposed  to  the  swell.  This  retarded  their  labour,  and  in 
the  meantime  the  fire  was  making  rapid  progress  ;  the 
mainmast,  which  had  long  been  burning,  fell  over  the  sides 
with  the  lurching  of  the  vessel,  and  the  flames  out  of  the 
main-deck  ports  soon  showed  their  points  above  the  bulwarks, 
while  volumes  of  smoke  were  poured  in  upon  the  upper 
deck,  almost  suffocating  the  numbers  which  were  crowded 
there  ;  for  all  communication  with  the  fore-part  of  the  ship 
had  been  for  some  time  cut  off  by  the  flames,  and  every  one 
had  retreated  aft.  The  women  and  children  were  now  carried 
on  to  the  poop  ;  not  only  to  remove  them  farther  from  the 
suffocating  smoke,  but  that  they  might  be  lowered  down  to 
the  raft  from  the  stern. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  all  was 
ready,  and  by  the  exertions  of  Philip  and  the  seamen,  not- 
withstanding the  swell,  the  women  and  children  were  safely 
placed  on  the  raft,  where  it  was  considered  that  they  would 
be  less  in  the  way,  as  the  men  could  relieve  each  other  in 
pulling  when  they  were  tired. 

160 


THE   PHANTOM    SHIP 

After  the  women  and  children  had  been  lowered  down,  the 
troops  were  next  ordered  to  descend  by  the  ladders  ;  some  few 
were  lost  in  the  attempt,  falling  under  the  boat's  bottom  and 
not  reappearing ;  but  two-thirds  of  the  men  were  safely  put 
in  the  berths  they  were  ordered  to  take  by  Krantz,  who  had 
gone  down  to  superintend  this  important  arrangement.  Such 
had  been  the  vigilance  of  Philip,  who  had  requested  Captain 
Barentz  to  stand  over  the  spirit-room  hatch,  with  pistols,  until 
the  smoke  on  the  main-deck  rendered  the  precaution  un- 
necessary, that  not  a  single  person  was  intoxicated,  and  to 
this  might  be  ascribed  the  order  and  regularity  which  had 
prevailed  during  this  trying  scene.  But  before  one-third  of 
the  soldiers  had  descended  by  the  stern  ladder,  the  fire  burst 
out  of  the  stern  windows  with  a  violence  that  nothing  could 
withstand  ;  spouts  of  vivid  flame  extended  several  feet  from 
the  vessel,  roaring  with  the  force  of  a  blowpipe  ;  at  the  same 
time  the  flames  burst  through  all  the  after-ports  of  the  main- 
deck,  and  those  remaining  on  board  found  themselves  en- 
circled with  fire,  and  suffocated  with  smoke  and  heat.  The 
stern  ladders  were  consumed  in  a  minute,  and  dropped  into 
the  sea ;  the  boats  which  had  been  receiving  the  men  were 
obliged  also  to  back  astern  from  the  intense  heat  of  the 
flames ;  even  those  on  the  raft  shrieked  as  they  found  them- 
selves scorched  by  the  ignited  fragments  which  fell  on  them 
as  they  were  enveloped  in  an  opaque  cloud  of  smoke,  which 
hid  from  them  those  who  still  remained  on  the  deck  of  the 
vessel.  Philip  attempted  to  speak  to  those  on  board,  but  he 
was  not  heard.  A  scene  of  confusion  took  place,  which  ended 
in  great  loss  of  life.  The  only  object  appeared  to  be  who 
should  first  escape ;  though,  except  by  jumping  overboard, 
there  was  no  escape.  Had  they  waited,  and  (as  Philip  would 
have  pointed  out  to  them),  one  by  one,  thrown  themselves 
into  the  sea,  the  men  in  the  boats  were  fully  prepared  to 
pick  them  up;  or  had  they  climbed  out  to  the  end  of  the 
lateen  mizzen-yard,  which  was  lowered  down,  they  might  have 
descended  safely  by  a  rope,  but  the  scorching  of  the  flames 
which  surrounded  them  and  the  suffocation  from  the  smoke 
were  overpowering,  and  most  of  the  soldiers  sprang  over  the 
taffrail  at  once,  or  as  nearly  so  as  possible.  The  consequence 
was  that  there  were  thirty  or  forty  in  the  water  at  the  same 
time,  and  the  scene  was  as  heart-rending  as  it  was  appalling ; 
161  L 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  sailors  in  the  boats  dragging  them  in  as  fast  as 'they  could 
— the  women  on  the  raft  throwing  to  them  loose  garments  to 
haul  them  in ;  at  one  time  a  wife  shrieking  as  she  saw  her 
husband  struggling  and  sinking  into  eternity ;  at  another, 
curses  and  execrations  from  the  swimmer  who  was  grappled 
with  by  the  drowning  man,  and  dragged  with  him  under  the 
surface.  Of  eighty  men  who  were  left  of  the  troops  on  board 
at  the  time  of  the  bursting  out  of  the  flames  from  the  stern 
windows,  but  twenty-five  were  saved.  There  were  but  few 
seamen  left  on  board  with  Philip,  the  major  part  having  been 
employed  in  making  the  raft  or  manning  the  three  boats ; 
those  who  were  on  board  remained  by  his  side,  regulating 
their  motions  by  his.  After  allowing  full  time  for  the  soldiers 
to  be  picked  up,  Philip  ordered  the  men  to  climb  out  to  the 
end  of  the  lateen  yard  which  hung  on  the  taffrail,  and  either 
to  lower  themselves  down  on  the  raft,  if  it  was  under,  or  to 
give  notice  to  the  boats  to  receive  them.  The  raft  had  been 
dropped  farther  astern  by  the  seamen,  that  those  on  board  of 
it  might  not  suffer  from  the  smoke  and  heat ;  and  the  sailors, 
one  after  another,  lowered  themselves  down  and  were  received 
by  the  boats.  Philip  desired  Captain  Barentz  to  go  before 
him,  but  the  captain  refused.  He  was  too  much  choked  with 
smoke  to  say  why,  but  no  doubt  but  that  it  would  have  been 
something  in  praise  of  the  Vrow  Katerina.  Philip  then 
climbed  out ;  he  was  followed  by  the  captain,  and  they  were 
both  received  into  one  of  the  boats. 

The  rope  which  had  hitherto  held  the  raft  to  the  ship  was 
now  cast  off,  and  it  was  taken  in  by  the  boats ;  and  in  a  short 
time  the  Vrow  Katerina  was  borne  to  leeward  of  them  ;  and 
Philip  and  Krantz  now  made  arrangements  for  the  better 
disposal  of  the  people.  The  sailors  were  almost  all  put  into 
boats,  that  they  might  relieve  one  another  in  pulling;  the 
remainder  were  placed  on  the  raft,  along  with  the  soldiers, 
the  women,  and  the  children.  Notwithstanding  that  the 
boats  were  all  as  much  loaded  as  they  could  well  bear,  the 
numbers  on  the  raft  were  so  great  that  it  sank  nearly  a  foot 
under  water  when  the  swell  of  the  sea  poured  upon  it ;  but 
stanchions  and  ropes  to  support  those  on  board  had  been 
fixed,  and  the  men  remained  at  the  sides,  while  the  women 
and  children  were  crowded  together  in  the  middle. 

As  soon  as  these  arrangements  were  made,  the  boats  took 
162 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

the  raft  in  tow,  and  just  as  the  dawn  of  day  appeared,  pulled 
in  the  direction  of  the  land. 

The  Vrow  Katerina  was,  by  this  time,  one  volume  of  flame ; 
she  had  drifted  about  half  a  mile  to  leeward,  and  Captain 
Barentz,  who  was  watching  her  as  he  sat  in  the  boat  with 
Philip,  exclaimed  :  "  Well,  there  goes  a  lovely  ship,  a  ship  that 
could  do  everything  but  speak — I'm  sure  that  not  a  ship  in 
the  fleet  would  have  made  such  a  bonfire  as  she  has — does  she 
not  bum  beautifully — nobly  ?  My  poor  Vruw  Katerina  !  perfect 
to  the  last,  we  never  shall  see  such  a  ship  as  you  again  !  Well, 
I'm  glad  my  father  did  not  live  to  see  this  sight,  for  it  would 
have  broken  his  heart,  poor  man." 

Philip  made  no  reply ;  he  felt  a  respect  even  for  Captain 
Barentz's  misplaced  regard  for  the  vessel.  They  made  but 
little  way,  for  the  swell  was  rather  against  them,  and  the  raft 
was  deep  in  the  water.  The  day  dawned,  and  the  appearance 
of  the  weather  was  not  favourable  ;  it  promised  the  return  of 
the  gale.  Already  a  breeze  ruffled  the  surface  of  the  water, 
and  the  swell  appeared  to  increase  rather  than  go  down.  The 
sky  was  overcast  and  the  horizon  thick.  Philip  looked  out  for 
the  land,  but  could  not  perceive  it,  for  there  was  a  haze  on  the 
horizon,  so  that  he  could  not  see  more  than  five  miles.  He 
felt  that  to  gain  the  shore  before  the  coming  night  was  neces- 
sary for  the  preservation  of  so  many  individuals,  of  whom  more 
than  sixty  were  women  and  children,  who,  without  any  nourish- 
ment, were  sitting  on  a  frail  raft  immersed  in  the  water.  No 
land  in  sight — a  gale  coming  on,  and  in  all  probability  a  heavy 
sea,  and  dark  night.  The  chance  was  indeed  desperate,  and 
Philip  was  miserable — most  miserable — when  he  reflected  that 
so  many  innocent  beings  might,  before  the  next  morning,  be 
consigned  to  a  watery  tomb, — and  why  ?  yes,  there  was  the 
feeling  that,  although  Philip  could  reason  against,  he  never 
could  conquer;  for  his  own  life  he  cared  nothing — even  the 
idea  of  his  beloved  Amine  was  nothing  in  the  balance  at  these 
moments.  The  only  point  which  sustained  him  was  the 
knowledge  that  he  had  his  duty  to  perform,  and,  in  the  full 
exercise  of  his  duty,  he  recovered  himself. 

"  Land  ahead ! "  was  now  cried  out  by  Krantz,  who  was  in 

the  headmost  boat,  and  the  news  was  received  with  a  shout  of 

joy  from  the  raft  and  the  boats.     The  anticipation  and  the 

hope  the  news  gave  was  like  manna  in  the  wilderness ;  and  the 

1C3 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

poor  women  on  the  raft,  drenched  sometimes  above  the  waist 
by  the  swell  of  the  sea,  clasped  the  children  in  their  arms 
still  closer,  and  cried,  "  My  darling,  you  shall  be  saved." 

Philip  stood  upon  the  stern-sheets  to  survey  the  land,  and 
he  had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  that  it  was  not  five  miles 
distant,  and  a  ray  of  hope  warmed  his  heart.  The  breeze  now 
had  gradually  increased,  and  rippled  the  water.  The  quarter 
from  which  the  wind  came  was  neither  favourable  nor  adverse, 
being  on  the  beam.  Had  they  had  sails  for  the  boats,  it 
would  have  been  otherwise  ;  but  they  had  been  stowed  away, 
and  could  not  be  procured.  The  sight  of  land  naturally 
rejoiced  them  all,  and  the  seamen  in  the  boats  cheered,  and 
double-banked  the  oars  to  increase  their  way  ;  but  the  towing 
of  a  large  raft  sunk  under  water  was  no  easy  task  ;  and  they 
did  not,  with  all  their  exertions,  advance  more  than  half  a 
mile  an  hour. 

Until  noon  they  continued  their  exertions,  not  without  suc- 
cess ;  they  were  not  three  miles  from  the  land  ;  but,  as  the  sun 
passed  the  meridian,  a  change  took  place  ;  the  breeze  blew 
strong ;  the  swell  of  the  sea  rose  rapidly ;  and  the  raft  was 
often  so  deeply  immersed  in  the  waves  as  to  alarm  them  for 
the  safety  of  those  upon  her.  Their  way  was  proportionally 
retarded,  and  by  three  o'clock  they  had  not  gained  half  a  mile 
from  where  they  had  been  at  noon.  The  men  not  having  had 
refreshment  of  any  kind  during  the  labour  and  excitement  of 
so  many  hours,  began  to  flag  in  their  exertions.  The  wish  for 
water  was  expressed  by  all  —  from  the  child  who  appealed  to 
its  mother,  to  the  seaman  who  strained  at  the  oar.  Philip  did 
all  he  could  to  encourage  the  men  ;  but  finding  themselves  so 
ne;ir  to  the  land,  and  so  overcome  with  fatigue,  and  that  the 
raft  in  tow  would  not  allow  them  to  approach  their  haven, 
they  murmured,  and  talked  of  the  necessity  of  casting  loose 
the  raft  and  looking  out  for  themselves.  A  feeling  of  self 
prevailed,  and  they  were  mutinous ;  but  Philip  expostulated 
with  them,  and  out  of  respect  for  him,  they  continued  their 
exertions  for  another  hour,  when  a  circumstance  occurred 
which  decided  the  question  upon  which  they  had  recom- 
menced a  debate. 

The  increased  swell  ami  the  fresh  breeze  had  so  beat  about 
and  tossed  the  raft,  that  it  was  with  difficulty,  for  some  time, 
that  its  occupants  could  hold  themselves  on  it.  A  loud  shout, 
164 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

mingled  with  screams,  attracted  the  attention  of  those  in  the 
boats,  and  Philip,  looking  back,  perceived  that  the  lashings  of 
the  raft  had  yielded  to  the  force  of  the  Mraves,  and  that  it  had 
separated  amidships.  The  scene  was  agonising;  husbands  were 
separated  from  their  wives  and  children — each  floating  away 
from  each  other — for  the  part  of  the  raft  which  was  still  towed 
by  the  boats  had  already  left  the  other  far  astern.  The  women 
rose  up  and  screamed,  and  held  up  their  children;  some,  more 
frantic,  dashed  into  the  water  between  them,  and  attempted  to 
gain  the  floating  wreck  upon  which  their  husbands  stood,  and 
sank  before  they  could  be  assisted.  But  the  horror  increased 
— one  lashing  having  given  way,  all  the  rest  soon  followed  ; 
and  before  the  boats  could  turn  and  give  assistance,  the  sea 
was  strewed  with  the  spars  which  composed  the  raft,  with  men, 
women,  and  children  clinging  to  them.  Loud  were  the  yells 
of  despair,  and  the  shrieks  of  the  women,  as  they  embraced 
their  offspring,  and  in  attempting  to  save  them  were  lost  them- 
selves. The  spars  of  the  raft  still  close  together  Mere  hurled 
one  upon  the  other  by  the  swell,  and  many  found  death  by 
being  jammed  between  them.  Although  all  the  boats  hastened 
to  their  assistance,  there  was  so  much  difficulty  and  danger  in 
forcing  them  between  the  spars,  that  but  few  were  saved,  and 
even  those  few  were  more  than  the  boats  could  well  take  in. 
The  seamen  and  a  few  soldiers  were  picked  up,  but  all  the 
females  and  the  children  had  sunk  beneath  the  waves. 

The  effect  of  this  catastrophe  may  be  imagined,  but  hardly 
described.  The  seamen  who  had  debated  as  to  casting  them 
adrift  to  perish,  wept  as  they  pulled  towards  the  shore.  Philip 
was  overcome ;  he  covered  his  face,  and  remained  for  some 
time  without  giving  directions,  and  heedless  of  what  passed. 

It  was  now  five  o'clock  in  the  evening ;  the  boats  had  cast 
off  the  tow-lines,  and  vied  with  each  other  in  their  exertions. 
Before  the  sun  had  set  they  all  had  arrived  at  the  beach,  and 
were  safely  landed  in  the  little  sand  bay  into  which  they  had 
steered  ;  for  the  wind  was  off  the  shore  and  there  was  no  surf. 
The  boats  were  hauled  up,  and  the  exhausted  men  lay  down  on 
the  sands,  still  warm  with  the  heat  of  the  sun,  and  forgetting 
that  they  had  neither  eaten  nor  drunk  for  so  long  a  time,  they 
were  soon  fast  asleep.  Captain  Barentz,  Philip,  and  Krantz, 
as  soon  as  they  had  seen  the  boats  secured,  held  a  short  con- 
sultation, and  were  then  glad  to  follow  the  example  of  the 
165 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

seamen ;  harassed  and  worn  out  with  the  fatigue  of  the  last 
twenty-four  hours,  their  senses  were  soon  drowned  in  oblivion. 

For  many  hours  they  all  slept  soundly,  dreamt  of  water,  and 
awoke  to  the  sad  reality  that  they  were  tormented  with  thirst, 
and  were  on  a  sandy  beach  with  the  salt  waves  mocking  them; 
but  they  reflected  how  many  of  their  late  companions  had  been 
swallowed  up,  and  felt  thankful  that  they  had  been  spared.  It 
was  early  dawn  when  they  all  rose  from  the  forms  which  they 
had  impressed  on  the  yielding  sand ;  and  by  the  directions  of 
Philip  they  separated  in  every  direction,  to  look  for  the  means 
of  quenching  their  agony  of  thirst.  As  they  proceeded  over  the 
sandhills,  they  found  growing  in  the  sand  a  low  spongy-leaf 
sort  of  shrub,  something  like  what  in  our  greenhouses  is  termed 
the  ice-plant;  the  thick  leaves  of  which  were  covered  with  large 
drops  of  dew.  They  sank  down  on  their  knees,  and  proceeded 
from  one  to  the  other,  licking  off  the  moisture,  which  was 
abundant,  and  soon  felt  a  temporary  relief.  They  continued 
their  search  till  noon  without'  success,  and  hunger  was  now 
added  to  their  thirst ;  they  then  returned  to  the  beach  to 
ascertain  if  their  companions  had  been  more  successful.  They 
had  also  quenched  their  thirst  with  the  dew  of  heaven,  but 
had  found  no  water  or  means  of  subsistence;  but  some  of  them 
had  eaten  the  leaves  of  the  plant  which  had  contained  the 
dew  in  the  morning,  and  had  found  them,  although  acid,  full 
of  watery  sap  and  grateful  to  the  palate.  The  plant  in  question 
is  the  one  provided  by  bounteous  Providence  for  the  support 
of  the  camel  and  other  beasts  in  the  arid  desert,  only  to  be 
found  there,  and  devoured  by  all  ruminating  animals  with 
avidity.  By  the  advice  of  Philip  they  collected  a  quantity  of 
this  plant  and  put  it  into  the  boats,  and  then  launched. 

They  were  not  more  than  fifty  miles  from  Table  Bay ;  and 
although  they  had  no  sails,  the  wind  v/as  in  their  favour. 
Philip  pointed  out  to  them  how  useless  it  was  to  remain,  when 
before  morning  they  would,  in  all  probability,  arrive  at  where 
they  would  obtain  all  they  required.  The  advice  was  approved 
of  and  acted  upon ;  the  boats  were  shoved  off  and  the  oars 
dipped  mechanically  into  the  water,  for  there  was  no  strength 
left  to  be  applied ;  it  was  not  until  the  next  morning  at  daylight 
that  they  had  arrived  opposite  False  Bay,  and  they  had  still 
many  miles  to  pull.  The  wind  in  their  favour  had  done  almost 
all — the  men  could  do  little  or  nothing. 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Encouraged,  however,  by  the  sight  of  land  which  they 
knew,  they  rallied ;  and  at  about  noon  they  pulled,  exhausted, 
to  the  beach  at  the  bottom  of  Table  Bay,  near  to  which  were 
the  houses,  and  the  fort  protecting  the  settlers,  who  had  for 
some  few  years  resided  there.  They  landed  close  to  where 
a  broad  rivulet  at  that  season  (but  a  torrent  in  the  winter) 
poured  its  stream  into  the  bay.  At  the  sight  of  fresh  water 
some  of  the  men  dropped  their  oars,  threw  themselves  into 
the  sea  when  out  of  their  depth — others  when  the  water  was 
above  their  waists — yet  they  did  not  arrive  so  soon  as  those 
who  waited  till  the  boat  struck  the  beach,  and  jumped  out 
upon  dry  land.  And  then  they  threw  themselves  into  the 
rivulet,  which  coursed  over  the  shingle,  about  five  or  six 
inches  in  depth,  allowing  the  refreshing  stream  to  pour  into 
their  mouths  till  they  could  receive  no  more,  immersing  their 
hot  hands,  and  rolling  in  it  with  delight. 

Despots  and  fanatics  have  exerted  their  ingenuity  to  invent 
torments  for  their  victims — how  useless!  The  rack,  the  boot, 
fire — all  that  they  have  imagined  are  not  to  be  compared  to 
the  torture  of  extreme  thirst.  In  the  extremity  of  agony 
the  sufferers  cry  for  water,  and  it  is  not  refused  :  they  might 
have  spared  themselves  their  refined  ingenuity  of  torment, 
and  the  disgusting  exhibition  of  it,  had  they  only  confined 
the  prisoner  in  his  cell,  and  refused  him  water. 

As  soon  as  they  had  satisfied  the  roost  pressing  of  all  wants, 
they  rose  dripping  from  the  stream,  and  walked  up  to  the 
houses  of  the  factory  ;  the  inhabitants  of  which,  perceiving 
that  boats  had  la.ided  when  there  was  no  vessel  in  the  bay, 
naturally  concluded  that  some  disaster  had  happened,  and 
were  walking  down  to  meet  them.  Their  tragical  history  was 
soon  told.  The  thirty-six  men  that  stood  before  them  were 
all  that  were  left  of  nearly  three  hundred  souls  embarked, 
and  they  had  been  more  than  two  days  without  food.  At 
this  intimation  no  further  questions  were  asked  by  the  con- 
siderate ^settlers  until  the  hunger  of  the  sufferers  had  been 
appeased,  when  the  narrative  of  their  sufferings  was  fully 
detailed  by  Philip  and  Krantz. 

"  I  have  an  idea  that  I  have  seen  you  before,"  observed 
one  of  the  settlers.  "  Did  you  come  on  shore  when  the  fleet 
anchored  ?  " 

"I  did  not,"  replied  Philip  :  "but  I  have  been  here." 
167 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  I  recollect  now,"  replied  the  man ;  "  you  were  the  only 
survivor  of  the  Ter  Schilling,  which  was  lost  in  False  Bay." 

"  Not  the  only  survivor,"  replied  Philip ;  "  I  thought  so 
myself;  but  I  afterwards  met  the  pilot,  a  one-eyed  man,  of 
the  name  of  Schriften,  who  was  my  shipmate  :  he  must  have 
arrived  here  after  me.  You  saw  him,  of  course  ?  " 

"No,  I  did  not.  No  one  belonging  to  the  Ter  Schilling 
ever  came  here  after  you  :  for  I  have  been  a  settler  here 
ever  since,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  I  should  forget  such  a 
circumstance." 

"  He  must,  then,  have  returned  to  Holland  by  some  other 
means." 

"  I  know  not  how.  Our  ships  never  go  near  the  coast 
after  they  leave  the  bay ;  it  is  too  dangerous." 

"  Nevertheless,  I  saw  him,"  replied  Philip,  musing. 

"  If  you  saw  him,  that  is  sufficient ;  perhaps  some  vessel 
had  been  blown  down  to  the  eastern  side,  and  picked  him 
up ;  but  the  natives  in  that  part  are  not  likely  to  have  spared 
tlie  life  of  a  European.  The  Caffres  are  a  cruel  people." 

The  information  that  Schriften  had  not  been  seen  at  the 
Cape  was  a  subject  of  meditation  to  Philip.  He  had  always 
an  idea,  as  the  reader  knows,  that  there  was  something 
supernatural  about  the  man ;  and  this  opinion  was  corro- 
borated by  the  report  of  the  settler. 

We  must  pass  over  the  space  of  two  months,  during  which 
the  wrecked  seamen  were  treated  with  kindness  by  the  settlers, 
and  at  the  expiration  of  which  a  small  brig  arrived  at  the  bay, 
and  took  in  refreshments :  she  was  homeward  bound,  with  a 
full  cargo,  and  being  chartered  by  the  Company,  could  not 
refuse  to  receive  on  board  the  crew  of  the  Vrow  Katcrina. 
Philip,  Krantz,  and  the  seamen  embarked :  but  Captain 
Barents  remained  behind  to  settle  at  the  Cape. 

"Should  I  go  home,"  said  he  to  Philip,  who  argued  with 
him,  "  I  have  nothing  in  this  world  to  return  for.  I  have  no 
wife — no  children.  I  had  but  one  dear  object,  my  From 
Kalerina,  who  was  my  wife,  my  child,  my  everything ; — she  is 
gone,  and  I  never  shall  find  another  vessel  like  her ;  and  if  I 
could,  I  should  not  love  it  as  I  did  her.  No,  my  affections 
are  buried  with  her — are  entombed  in  the  deep  sea.  How 
beautifully  she  burned!  she  went  out  of  the  world  like  a 
phoenix,  as  she  was.  No,  no!  I  will  be  faithful  to  her — I 
163 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

will  send  for  what  little  money  I  have,  and  live  as  near  to  her 
tomb  as  I  can — I  never  shall  forget  her  as  long  as  I  live.  I 
shall  mourn  over  her,  and  '  Vrow  Katerina/  when  I  die,  will 
be  found  engraven  on  my  heart." 

Philip  could  not  help  wishing  that  his  affections  had  been 
fixed  upon  a  more  deserving  object,  as  then,  probably,  the 
tragical  loss  had  not  taken  place  ;  but  he  changed  the  subject, 
feeling  that,  being  no  sailor,  Captain  Barentz  was  much  better 
on  shore  than  in  the  command  of  a  vessel.  They  shook  hands 
and  parted  —  Philip  promising  to  execute  Barentz 's  commis- 
sion, which  was  to  turn  his  money  into  articles  most  useful 
to  a  settler,  and  have  them  sent  out  by  the  first  fleet  which 
should  sail  from  the  Zuyder  Zee.  But  this  commission  it  was 
not  Philip's  good  fortune  to  execute.  The  brig,  named  the 
Wilhelmina,  sailed,  and  soon  arrived  at  St.  Helena.  After 
watering,  she  proceeded  on  her  voyage.  They  had  made  the 
Western  Isles,  and  Philip  was  consoling  himself  with  the 
anticipation  of  soon  joining  his  Amine,  when,  to  the  north- 
ward of  the  islands,  they  met  with  a  furious  gale,  before  which 
they  were  obliged  to  scud  for  many  days,  with  the  vessel's 
head  to  the  south-east ;  and  as  the  wind  abated,  and  they 
were  able  to  haul  to  it,  they  fell  in  with  a  Dutch  fleet  of  five 
vessels,  commanded  by  an  admiral,  which  had  left  Amsterdam 
more  than  two  months,  and  had  been  buffeted  about  by  con- 
trary gales  for  the  major  part  of  that  period.  Cold,  fatigue, 
and  bad  provisions  had  brought  on  the  scurvy  ;  and  the  ships 
were  so  weakly  manned  that  they  could  hardly  navigate  them. 
When  the  captain  of  the  Wilhelmina  reported  to  the  admiral 
that  he  had  part  of  the  crew  of  the  Vrow  Katerina  on  board,  he 
was  ordered  to  send  them  immediately  to  assist  in  navigating 
his  crippled  fleet.  Remonstrance  was  useless.  Philip  had  but 
time  to  write  to  Amine,  acquainting  her  with  his  misfortunes 
and  disappointment ;  and,  confiding  the  letter  for  his  wife,  as 
well  as  his  narrative  of  the  loss  of  the  Vrow  Katcriiia  for  the 
Directors,  to  the  charge  of  the  captain  of  the  Wilhelmina,  he 
hastened  to  pack  up  his  effects,  and  repaired  on  board  of  the 
admiral's  ship  with  Krantz  and  the  crew.  To  them  were  added 
six  of  the  men  belonging  to  the  Wilhelmina,  whom  the  admiral 
insisted  on  retaining;  and  the  brig,  having  received  the 
admiral's  despatches,  was  then  permitted  to  continue  her 
voyage. 

169 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Perhaps  there  is  nothing  more  trying  to  seamen's  feel- 
ings than  being  unexpectedly  forced  to  recommence  another 
series  of  trials,  at  the  very  time  when  they  anticipate  repose 
from  their  former;  yet  how  often  does  this  happen!  Philip 
was  melancholy.  "  It  is  my  destiny,"  thought  he,  using  the 
words  of  Amine,  "and  why  should  I  not  submit?"  Krantz 
was  furious,  and  the  seamen  discontented  and  mutinous ;  but 
it  was  useless.  Might  is  right  on  the  vast  ocean,  where  there 
is  no  appeal — no  trial  or  injunction  to  be  obtained. 

But  hard  as  their  case  appeared  to  them,  the  admiral  was 
fully  justified  in  his  proceeding.  His  ships  were  almost  un- 
manageable with  the  few  hands  who  could  still  perform  their 
duty ;  and  this  small  increase  of  physical  power  might  be  the 
means  of  saving  hundreds  who  lay  helpless  in  their  hammocks. 
In  his  own  vessel,  the  Lion,  which  was  manned  with  two 
hundred  and  fifty  men  when  she  sailed  from  Amsterdam, 
there  were  not  more  than  seventy  capable  of  doing  duty  ;  and 
the  other  ships  had  suffered  in  proportion. 

The  first  captain  of  the  Lion  was  dead,  the  second  captain  in 
his  hammock,  and  the  admiral  had  no  one  to  assist  him  but  the 
mates  of  the  vessel,  some  of  whom  crawled  up  to  their  duty 
more  dead  than  alive.  The  ship  of  the  second  in  command, 
the  Dort,  was  even  in  a  more  deplorable  plight.  The  commo- 
dore was  dead  ;  the  first  captain  was  still  doing  his  duty  ;  but 
he  had  but  one  more  officer  capable  of  remaining  on  deck. 

The  admiral  sent  for  Philip  into  his  cabin,  and  having  heard 
his  narrative  of  the  loss  of  the  f'nnr  Katcrina,  he  ordered  him 
to  go  on  board  the  commodore's  ship  as  captain,  giving  the 
rank  of  commodore  to  the  captain  at  present  on  board  of  her  ; 
Krantz  was  retained  on  board  his  own  vessel,  as  second  cap- 
tain ;  for,  by  Philip's  narrative,  the  admiral  perceived  at  once 
that  they  were  both  good  officers  and  brave  men. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

JL  HE  fleet  under  Admiral  Rymelandt's  command  was  ordered 
to  proceed  to  the  East  Indies  by  the  western  route,  through 
the  Straits  of  Magellan  into  the  Pacific  Ocean — it  being  still 
imagined,  notwithstanding  previous  failures,  that  this  route 
170 


THE   PHANTOM  SHI? 

offered  facilities  which  might  shorten  the  passage  of  the 
Spice  Islands. 

The  vessels  composing  the  fleet  were  the  Lion,  of  forty- 
four  guns,  bearing  the  admiral's  flag  ;  the  Dort,  of  thirty-six 
guns,  with  the  commodore's  pennant — to  which  Philip  was 
appointed  ;  the  Zuyder  Zee,  of  twenty ;  the  Young  Frau,  of 
twelve  ;  and  a  ketch  of  four  guns,  called  the  Scheme  I  ling. 

The  crew  of  the  Vrow  Katerina  were  divided  between  the 
two  larger  vessels  ;  the  others  being  smaller,  were  easier 
worked  with  fewer  hands.  Every  arrangement  having  been 
made,  the  boats  were  hoisted  up,  and  the  ships  made  sail 
For  ten  days  they  were  baffled  by  light  winds,  and  the 
victims  to  the  scurvy  increased  considerably  on  board  of 
Philip's  vessel.  Many  died  and  were  thrown  overboard,  and 
others  were  carried  down  to  their  hammocks. 

The  newly-appointed  commodore,  whose  name  was  Aven- 
horn,  went  on  board  of  the  admiral,  to  report  the  state  of  the 
vessel,  and  to  suggest,  as  Philip  had  proposed  to  him,  that  they 
should  make  the  coast  of  South  America,  and  endeavour  by 
bribery  or  by  force  to  obtain  supplies  either  from  the  Spanish 
inhabitants  or  the  natives.  But  to  this  the  admiral  would  not 
listen.  He  was  an  imperious,  bold,  and  obstinate  man,,  not 
to  be  persuaded  or  convinced,  and  with  little  feeling  for  the 
sufferings  of  others.  Tenacious  of  being  advised,  he  imme- 
diately rejected  a  proposition  which,  had  it  originated  with 
himself,  would  probably  have  been  immediately  acted  upon ; 
and  the  commodore  returned  on  board  his  vessel,  not  only 
disappointed,  but  irritated  by  the  language  used  towards  him. 

"What  are  we  to  do,  Giptain  Vanderdecken ?  You  know 
too  well  our  situation — it  is  impossible  we  can  continue  long 
at  sea ;  if  we  do,  the  vessel  will  be  drifting  at  the  mercy  of 
the  waves,  while  the  crew  die  a  wretched  death  in  their 
hammocks.  At  present  we  have  forty  men  left ;  in  ten 
days  more  we  shall  probably  have  but  twenty ;  for  as  the 
labour  becomes  more  severe,  so  do  they  drop  down  the 
faster.  Is  it  not  better  to  risk  our  lives  in  combat  with 
the  Spaniards,  than  die  here  like  rotten  sheep?" 

"  I  perfectly  agree  with  you,  commodore,"  replied  Philip ; 
"but  still  we  must  obey  orders.  The  admiral  is  an  inflexible 
man." 

"  And  a  cruel  one.  I  have  a  great  mind  to  part  company 
171 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

in  the  night,  and  if  he  finds  fault,  I  will  justify  myself  to  the 
Directors  on  my  return." 

"  Do  nothing  rashly — perhaps,  when  day  by  day  he  finds 
his  own  ship's  company  more  weakened,  he  will  see  the 
necessity  of  following  your  advice." 

A  week  had  passed  away  after  this  conversation,  and  the 
fleet  had  made  little  progress.  In  each  ship  the  ravages  of 
the  fatal  disease  became  more  serious,  and,  as  the  commodore 
had  predicted,  he  had  but  twenty  men  really  able  to  do  duty. 
Nor  had  the  admiral's  ship  and  the  other  vessels  suffered 
less.  The  commodore  again  went  on  board  to  reiterate  his 
proposition. 

Admiral  Rymelandt  was  not  only  a  stern,  but  a  vindictive 
man.  He  was  aware  of  the  propriety  of  the  suggestion  made 
by  his  second  in  command,  but  having  refused  it,  he  would 
not  acquiesce  ;  and  he  felt  revengeful  against  the  commodore, 
whose  counsel  he  must  either  adopt,  or  by  refusing  it  be 
prevented  from  taking  the  steps  so  necessary  for  the  pre- 
servation of  his  crew,  and  the  success  of  his  voyage.  Too 
proud  to  acknowledge  himself  in  error,  again  did  he  decidedly 
refuse,  and  the  commodore  went  back  to  his  own  ship.  The 
fleet  was  then  within  three  days  of  the  coast,  steering  to  the 
southward  for  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  and  that  night,  after 
Philip  had  retired  to  his  cot,  the  commodore  went  on  deck 
and  ordered  the  course  of  the  vessel  to  be  altered  some  points 
more  to  the  westward.  The  night  was  very  dark,  and  the 
Lion  was  the  only  ship  which  carried  a  poop-lantern,  so  that 
the  parting  company  of  the  Dort  was  not  perceived  by  the 
admiral  and  the  other  ships  of  the  fleet.  When  Philip  went 
on  deck  next  morning,  he  found  that  their  consorts  were 
not  jn  sight.  He  looked  at  the  compass,  and  perceiving  that 
the  course  was  altered,  inquired  at  what  hour  and  by  whose 
directions.  Finding  that  it  was  by  his  superior  officer,  he  of 
course  said  nothing.  When  the  commodore  came  on  deck, 
he  stated  to  Philip  that  he  felt  himself  warranted  in  not  com- 
plying with  the  admiral's  orders,  as  it  would  have  been  sacrific- 
ing the  whole  ship's  company.  This  was,  indeed,  true. 

In  two  days  they  made  the  land,  and  running  into  the 
shore,  perceived  a  large  town  and  Spaniards  on  the  beach. 
They  anchored  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  hoisted  English 
colours,  when  a  boat  came  on  board  to  ask  them  who  they 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

were,  and  what  they  required  ?  The  commodore  replied  that 
the  vessel  was  English,  for  he  knew  that  the  hatred  of  the 
Spanish  to  the  Dutch  was  so  great  that,  if  known  to  belong 
to  that  nation,  he  would  have  had  no  chance  of  procuring 
any  supplies,  except  by  force.  He  stated  that  he  had  fallen 
in  with  a  Spanish  vessel,  a  complete  wreck,  from  the  whole 
of  the  crew  being  afflicted  with  the  scurvy ;  that  he  had 
taken  the  men  out,  who  were  now  in  their  hammocks  below, 
as  he  considered  it  cruel  to  leave  so  many  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  to  perish,  and  that  he  had  come  out  of  his  course 
to  land  them  at  the  first  Spanish  fort  he  could  reach.  He 
requested  that  they  would  immediately  send  on  board  vege- 
tables and  fresh  provisions  for  the  sick  men,  whom  it  would 
be  death  to  remove  until  after  a  few  days,  when  they  would 
be  a  little  restored  ;  and  added,  that  in  return  for  their  assist- 
ing the  Spaniards,  he  trusted  the  governor  would  also  send 
supplies  for  his  own  people. 

This  well-made-up  story  was  confirmed  by  the  officer  sent 
on  board  by  the  Spanish  governor.  Being  requested  to  go 
down  below  and  see  the  patients,  the  sight  of  so  many  poor 
fellows  in  the  last  stage  of  that  horrid  disease — their  teeth 
fallen  out,  gums  ulcerated,  bodies  full  of  tumours  and  sores — 
was  quite  sufficient ;  and  hurrying  up  from  the  lower  deck, 
as  he  would  have  done  from  a  charnel-house,  the  officer 
hastened  on  shore  and  made  his  report. 

In  two  hours  a  large  boat  was  sent  off  with  fresh  beef  and 
Vegetables  sufficient  for  three  days'  supply  for  the  ship's  com- 
pany, and  these  were  immediately  distributed  among  the 
men.  A  letter  of  thanks  was  returned  by  the  commodore, 
stating  that  his  health  was  so  indifferent  as  to  prevent  his 
coming  on  shore  in  person  to  thank  the  governor,  and  for- 
warding a  pretended  list  of  the  Spaniards  on  board,  in  which 
he  mentioned  some  officers  and  people  of  distinction,  whom 
he  imagined  might  be  connected  with  the  family  of  the 
governor,  whose  name  and  titles  he  had  received  from  the 
messenger  sent  on  board  ;  for  the  Dutch  knew  full  well  the 
majority  of  the  noble  Spanish  families — indeed,  alliances  had 
continually  taken  place  between  them,  previous  to  their 
assertion  of  their  independence.  The  commodore  concluded 
his  letter  by  expressing  a  hope  that,  in  a  day  or  two,  he 
should  be  able  to  pay  his  respects,  and  make  arrangements 
173 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

for  the  landing  of  the  sick,  as  he  was  anxious  to  proceed  on 
his  voyage  of  discovery. 

On  the  third  day,  a  fresh  supply  of  provisions  was  sent  on 
board,  and  so  soon  as  they  were  received,  the  commodore,  in 
an  English  uniform,  went  on  shore  and  called  upon  the 
governor,  gave  a  long  detail  of  the  sufferings  of  the  people 
he  had  rescued,  and  agreed  that  they  should  be  sent  on  shore 
in  two  days,  and  they  would  by  that  time  be  well  enough  to 
be  moved.  After  many  compliments,  he  went  on  board,  the 
governor  having  stated  his  intention  to  return  his  visit  on  the 
following  day,  if  the  weather  were  not  too  rough.  Fortu- 
nately, the  weather  was  rough  for  the  next  two  days,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  third  that  the  governor  made  his  appear- 
ance. This  was  precisely  what  the  commodore  wished. 

There  is  no  disease,  perhaps,  so  dreadful  or  so  rapid  in  its 
effects  upon  the  human  frame,  and  at  the  same  time  so  instan- 
taneously checked,  as  the  scurvy,  if  the  remedy  can  be  pro- 
cured. A  few  days  were  sufficient  to  restore  those  who  were 
not  able  to  turn  in  their  hammocks,  to  their  former  vigour.  In 
the  course  of  the  six  days  nearly  all  the  crew  of  the  Dort  were 
convalescent  and  able  to  go  on  deck  ;  but  still  they  were  not 
cured.  The  commodore  waited  for  the  arrival  of  the  governor, 
received  him  with  all  due  honours,  and  then,  so  soon  as  he  was 
in  the  cabin,  told  him  very  politely  that  he  and  all  his  officers 
with  him  were  prisoners.  That  the  vessel  was  a  Dutch  man- 
of-war,  and  that  it  was  his  own  people,  and  not  Spaniards,  who 
had  been  dying  of  the  scurvy.  He  consoled  him,  however,  by 
pointing  out  that  he  had  thought  it  preferable  to  obtain  pro- 
visions by  this  ruse,  than  to  sacrifice  lives  on  both  sides  by 
taking  them  by  force,  and  that  his  Excellency's  captivity  would 
endure  no  longer  than  until  he  had  received  on  board  a  sufficient 
number  of  live  bullocks  and  fresh  vegetables  to  insure  the 
recovery  of  the  ship's  company ;  and,  in  the  meantime,  not 
the  least  insult  would  be  offered  to  him.  Whereupon  the 
Spanish  governor  first  looked  at  the  commodore  and  then  at 
the  file  of  armed  men  at  the  cabin-door,  and  then  to  his  distance 
from  the  town  ;  and  then  called  to  mind  the  possibility  of  his 
being  taken  out  to  sea.  Weighing  all  these  points  in  his  mind, 
and  the  very  moderate  ransom  demanded  (for  bullocks  were 
not  worth  a  dollar  apiece  in  that  country),  he  resolved,  as  he 
could  not  help  himself,  to  comply  with  the  commodore's  terms. 
174 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

He  called  for  pen  and  ink,  and  wrote  an  order  to  send  on  board 
immediately  all  that  was  demanded.  Before  sunset  the  bullocks 
and  vegetables  were  brought  off,  and,  so  soon  as  they  were 
alongside,  the  commodore,  with  many  bows  and  many  thanks, 
escorted  the  governor  to  the  gangway,  complimenting  him  with 
a  salvo  of  great  guns,  as  he  had  done  before,  on  his  arrival. 
The  people  on  shore  thought  that  his  Excellency  had  paid  a 
long  visit,  but,  as  he  did  not  like  to  acknowledge  that  he  had 
been  deceived,  nothing  was  said  about  it,  at  least  in  his  hearing, 
although  the  facts  were  soon  well  known.  As  soon  as  the 
boats  were  cleared,  the  commodore  weighed  anchor  and  made 
sail,  well  satisfied  with  having  preserved  his  ship's  company, 
and  as  the  Falkland  Islands,  in  case  of  parting  company,  had 
been  named  as  the  rendezvous,  he  steered  for  them.  In  a 
fortnight  he  arrived,  and  found  that  his  admiral  was  not  yet 
there.  His  crew  were  now  all  recovered,  and  his  fresh  beef 
was  not  yet  expended,  when  he  perceived  the  admiral  and  the 
three  other  vessels  in  the  offing. 

It  appeared  that  so  soon  as  the  Dort  had  parted  company, 
the  admiral  had  immediately  acted  upon  the  advice  that  the 
commodore  had  given  him,  and  had  run  for  the  coast.  Not 
being  so  fortunate  in  a  ruse  as  his  second  in  command,  he  had 
landed  an  armed  force  from  the  four  vessels, and  had  succeeded 
in  obtaining  several  head  of  cattle,  at  the  expense  of  an  equal 
number  of  men  killed  and  wounded.  But  at  the  same  time 
they  had  collected  a  large  quantity  of  vegetables  of  one  sort  or 
another,  which  they  had  carried  on  board  and  distributed  with 
great  success  to  the  sick,  who  were  gradually  recovering. 

Immediately  that  the  admiral  had  anchored,  he  made  the 
signal  for  the  commodore  to  repair  on  board,  and  taxed  him 
•with  disobedience  of  orders  in  having  left  the  fleet.  The 
commodore  did  not  deny  that  he  had  so  done,  but  excused 
himself  upon  the  plea  of  necessity,  offering  to  lay  the  whole 
matter  before  the  Court  of  Directors  so  soon  as  they  returned ; 
but  the  admiral  was  vested  with  most  extensive  powers,  not 
only  of  the  trial,  but  the  condemnation  and  punishment  of  any 
person  guilty  of  mutiny  and  insubordination  in  his  fleet.  In 
reply,  he  told  the  commodore  that  he  was  a  prisoner,  and  to 
prove  it,  he  confined  him  in  irons  under  the  half-deck. 

A  signal  was  then  made  for  all  the  captains  :  they  went  on 
board,  and  of  course  Philip  was  of  the  number.  On  their 
175 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

arrival,  the  admiral  held  a  summary  court-martial,  proving  to 
them  by  his  instructions  that  he  was  warranted  so  to  do.  The 
result  of  the  court-martial  could  be  but  one — condemnation  for 
a  breach  of  discipline,  to  which  Philip  was  obliged  reluctantly 
to  sign  his  name.  The  admiral  then  gave  Philip  the  appoint- 
ment of  second  in  command,  and  the  commodore's  pennant, 
much  to  the  annoyance  of  the  captains  commanding  the  other 
vessels;  but  in  this  the  admiral  proved  his  judgment,  as  there 
was  no  one  of  them  so  fit  for  the  task  as  Philip.  Having  so 
done,  he  dismissed  them.  Philip  would  have  spoken  to  the 
late  commodore,  but  the  sentry  opposed  it,  as  against  his 
orders ;  and  with  a  friendly  nod,  Philip  was  obliged  to  leave 
him  without  a  desired  communication. 

The  fleet  remained  three  weeks  at  the  Falkland  Islands,  to 
recruit  the  ships'  companies.  Although  there  was  no  fresh 
beef,  there  was  plenty  of  scurvy-grass  and  penguins.  These 
birds  were  in  myriads  on  some  parts  of  the  island,  which,  from 
the  propinquity  of  their  nests,  built  of  mud,  went  by  the  name 
of  tonms.  There  they  sat,  close  together  (the  whole  areq 
which  they  covered  being  bare  of  grass),  hatching  their  eggs 
and  rearing  their  young.  The  men  had  but  to  select  as  many 
eggs  and  birds  as  they  pleased,  and  so  numerous  were  they 
that  when  they  had  supplied  themselves,  there  was  no  ap- 
parent diminution  of  the  numbers.  This  food,  although  in  a 
short  time  not  very  palatable  to  the  seamen,  had  the  effect  of 
restoring  them  to  health,  and  before  the  fleet  sailed  there  was 
not  a  man  who  was  afflicted  with  the  scurvy.  In  the  meantime 
the  commodore  remained  in  irons,  and  many  were  the  conjec- 
tures concerning  his  ultimate  fate.  The  power  of  life  and 
death  was  known  to  be  in  the  admiral's  hands,  but  no  one 
thought  that  such  power  would  be  exerted  upon  a  delinquent 
of  so  high  a  grade.  The  other  captains  kept  aloof  from  Philip, 
and  he  knew  little  of  what  was  the  general  idea.  Occasionally 
when  on  board  of  the  admiral's  ship,  he  ventured  to  bring  up 
the  question,  but  was  immediately  silenced ;  and  feeling  that 
he  might  injure  the  late  commodore  (for  whom  he  had  a 
regard),  he  would  risk  nothing  by  importunity  ;  and  the  fleet 
sailed  for  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  without  anybody  being 
aware  of  what  might  be  the  result  of  the  court-martial. 

It  was  about  a  fortnight  after  they  had  left  the  Falkland 
Islands  that  they  entered  the  Straits.  At  first  they  had  a 
176 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

leading  wind,  which  carried  them  half  through,  but  this  did 
not  last,  and  they  then  had  to  contend  not  only  against  the 
wind,  but  against  the  current,  and  they  daily  lost  ground. 
The  crews  of  the  ships  also  began  to  sicken  from  fatigue  and 
cold.  Whether  the  admiral  had  before  made  up  his  mind,  or 
whether,  irritated  by  his  fruitless  endeavours  to  continue  his 
voyage,  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  after  three  weeks'  use- 
less struggle  against  the  wind  and  currents,  he  hove  to,  and 
ordered  all  the  captains  on  board,  when  he  proposed  that  the 
prisoner  should  receive  his  punishment — and  that  punish- 
ment was  to  be  deserted ;  that  is,  to  be  sent  on  shore  with  a 
day's  food,  where  there  was  no  means  of  obtaining  support, 
so  as  to  die  miserably  of  hunger.  This  was  a  punishment 
frequently  resorted  to  by  the  Dutch  at  that  period,  as  will  be 
seen  by  reading  an  account  of  their  voyages ;  but  at  the 
same  time,  seldom,  if  ever,  awarded  to  one  of  so  high  a  rank 
as  that  of  commodore. 

Philip  immediately  protested  against  it,  and  so  did  Krantz, 
although  they  were  both  aware  that  by  so  doing  they  would 
make  the  admiral  their  enemy;  but  the  other  captains,  who 
viewed  both  of  them  with  a  jealous  eye,  and  considered  them 
as  interlopers  and  interfering  with  their  advancements,  sided 
with  the  admiral.  Notwithstanding  this  majority,  Philip 
thought  it  his  duty  to  expostulate. 

"  You  know  well,  admiral,"  said  he,  "  that  I  joined  in  his 
condemnation  for  a  breach  of  discipline  :  but,  at  the  same 
time,  there  was  much  in  extenuation.  He  committed  a  breach 
of  discipline  to  save  his  ship's  company,  but  not  an  error  in 
judgment,  as  you  yourself  proved,  by  taking  the  same  measure 
to  save  your  own  men.  Do  not,  therefore,  visit  an  offence  of 
so  doubtful  a  nature  with  such  cruelty.  Let  the  Company 
decide  the  point  when  you  send  him  home,  which  you  can  do 
so  soon  as  you  arrive  in  India.  He  is  sufficiently  punished  by 
losing  his  command :  to  do  what  you  propose  will  be  ascribed 
to  feelings  of  revenge  more  than  to  those  of  justice.  What 
success  can  we  deserve  if  we  commit  an  act  of  such  cruelty ; 
and  how  can  we  expect  a  merciful  Providence  to  protect  us 
from  the  winds  and  waves,  when  we  are  thus  barbarous 
towards  each  other  ?  " 

Philip's  arguments  were  of  no  avail.  The  admiral  ordered 
him  to  return  on  board  his  ship,  and  had  he  been  able  to  find 
177  M 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

an  excuse,  he  would  have  deprived  him  of  his  command. 
This  he  could  not  well  do ;  but  Philip  was  aware  that  the 
admiral  was  now  his  inveterate  enemy.  The  commodore 
was  taken  out  of  irons  and  brought  into  the  cabin,  and  his 
sentence  was  made  known  to  him. 

"Be  it  so,  admiral,"  replied  Avenhorn ;  "for  to  attempt  to 
turn  you  from  your  purpose,  I  know  would  be  unavailing.  I 
am  not  punished  for  disobedience  to  orders,  but  for  having, 
by  my  disobedience,  pointed  out  to  you  your  duty — a  duty 
which  you  were  forced  to  perform  afterwards  by  necessity. 
Then,  be  it  so ;  let  me  perish  on  these  black  rocks,  as  I  shall, 
and  my  bones  be  whitened  bv  the  chilly  blasts  which  howl 
over  their  desolation.  But  mark  me,  cruel  and  vindictive 
man  !  I  shall  not  be  the  only  one  whose  bones  will  bleach 
there.  I  prophesy  that  many  others  will  share  my  fate,  and 
even  you,  admiral,  mm/  be  of  the  number, — if  I  mistake  not, 
we  shall  lie  side  by  side." 

The  admiral  made  no  reply,  but  gave  a  sign  for  the 
prisoner  to  be  removed.  He  then  had  a  conference  with 
the  captains  of  the  three  smaller  vessels  ;  and  as  they  had 
been  all  along  retarded  by  the  heavier  sailing  of  his  own 
ship,  and  the  Dort  commanded  by  Philip,  he  decided  that 
they  should  part  company,  and  proceed  on  as  fast  as  they 
could  to  the  Indies — sending  on  board  of  the  two  larger 
vessels  all  the  provisions  they  could  spare,  as  they  already 
began  to  run  short. 

Philip  had  left  the  cabin  with  Krantz  after  the  prisoner  had 
been  removed.  He  then  wrote  a  few  lines  upon  a  slip  of 
paper — "  Do  not  leave  the  beach  when  you  are  put  on  shore, 
until  the  vessels  are  out  of  sight ; "  and  requesting  Krantz  to 
find  an  opportunity  to  deliver  this  to  the  commodore,  he 
returned  on  board  of  his  own  ship. 

When  the  crew  of  the  Dorl  heard  of  the  punishment  about 
to  be  inflicted  upon  their  old  commander,  they  were  much 
excited.  They  felt  that  he  had  sacrificed  himself  to  save  them, 
and  they  murmured  much  at  the  cruelty  of  the  admiral. 

About  an  hour  after  Philip's  return  to  his  ship,  the  prisoner 
was  sent  on  shore  and  landed  on  the  desolate  and  rocky  coast, 
with  a  supply  of  provisions  for  two  days.  Not  a  single  article 
of  extra  clothing,  or  the  means  of  striking  a  light,  was  per- 
mitted him.  When  the  boat's  keel  grazed  the  beach  he  was 
178 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

ordered  out.  The  boat  shoved  off,  and  the  men  were  not 
permitted  even  to  bid  him  farewell. 

The  fleet,  as  Philip  had  expected,  remained  hove  to,  shifting 
the  provisions,  and  it  was  not  till  after  dark  that  everything 
was  arranged.  This  opportunity  was  not  lost.  Philip  was 
aware  that  it  would  be  considered  a  breach  of  discipline,  but 
to  that  he  was  indifferent ;  neither  did  he  think  it  likely  that 
it  would  come  to  the  ears  of  the  admiral,  as  the  crew  of  the 
Dort  were  partial  both  to  the  commodore  and  to  him.  He 
had  desired  a  seaman  whom  he  could  trust,  to  put  into  one  of 
the  boats  a  couple  of  muskets,  and  a  quantity  of  ammunition, 
several  blankets,  and  various  other  articles,  besides  provisions 
for  two  or  three  months  for  one  person  ;  and  as  soon  as  it  was 
dark  the  men  pulled  on  shore  with  the  boat,  found  the  com- 
modore on  the  beach  waiting  for  them,  and  supplied  him  with 
all  these  necessaries.  They  then  rejoined  their  ship,  without 
the  admiral's  having  the  least  suspicion  of  what  had  been 
done,  and  shortly  after  the  fleet  made  sail  on  a  wind,  with 
their  heads  off  shore.  The  next  morning  the  three  smaller 
vessels  parted  company,  and  by  sunset  had  gained  many  miles 
to  windward,  after  which  they  were  not  again  seen. 

The  admiral  had  sent  for  Philip  to  give  him  his  instructions, 
which  were  very  severe,  and  evidently  framed  so  as  to  be  able 
to  afford  him  hereafter  some  excuse  for  depriving  him  of  his 
command.  Among  others,  his  orders  were,  as  the  Dort  drew 
much  less  water  than  the  admiral's  ?hip,  to  sail  ahead  of  him 
during  the  night,  that  if  they  approached  too  near  the  land  as 
they  beat  across  the  channel,  timely  notice  might  be  given  to 
the  admiral  if  in  too  shallow  water.  This  responsibility  was 
the  occasion  of  Philip's  being  always  on  deck  when  they 
approached  the  land  on  either  side  of  the  Straits.  It  was  the 
second  night  after  the  fleet  had  separated  that  Philip  had  been 
summoned  on  deck  as  they  were  nearing  the  land  of  Tierra 
del  Fuego :  he  was  watching  the  man  in  the  chains  heaving 
the  lead,  when  the  officer  of  the  watch  reported  to  him  that 
the  admiral's  ship  was  ahead  of  them  instead  of  astern. 
Philip  made  inquiry  as  to  when  he  passed,  but  could  not  dis- 
cover; he  went  forward,  and  saw  the  admiral's  ship  with  her 
poop-light,  which,  when  the  admiral  was  astern,  was  not 
visible.  "What  can  be  the  admiral's  reason  for  this?" 
thought  Philip ;  "  has  he  run  ahead  on  purpose  to  make  a 
17.9 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

charge  against  me  of  neglect  of  duty  ?  It  must  be  so.  Well, 
let  him  do  as  he  pleases  ;  he  must  wait  now  till  we  arrive  in 
India,  for  I  shall  not  allow  him  to  desert  me ;  and  with  the 
Company  I  have  as  much,  and  I  rather  think,  as  a  large  pro- 
prietor, more  interest  than  he  has.  Well,  as  he  has  thought 
proper  to  go  ahead,  I  have  nothing  to  do  but  follow.  You 
may  come  out  of  the  chains  there." 

Philip  went  forward :  they  were  now,  as  he  imagined,  very 
near  to  the  land,  but  the  night  was  dark,  and  they  could  not 
distinguish  it.  For  half-an-hour  they  continued  their  course, 
much  to  Philip's  surprise,  for  he  now  thought  he  could  make 
out  the  loom  of  the  land,  dark  as  it  was.  His  eyes  were 
constantly  fixed  upon  the  ship  ahead,  expecting  every  minute 
that  she  would  go  about ;  but  no,  she  continued  her  course, 
and  Philip  followed  with  his  own  vessel. 

"We  are  very  close  to  the  land,  sir,"  observed  Vander 
Hagen,  the  lieutenant,  who  was  officer  of  the  watch. 

"So  it  appears  to  me :  but  the  admiral  is  closer,  and  draws 
much  more  water  than  we  do,"  replied  Philip. 

"  I  think  I  see  the  rocks  on  the  beam  to  leeward,  sir." 

"  I  believe  you  are  right,"  replied  Philip  :  "  I  cannot  under- 
stand this.  Ready  about,  and  get  a  gun  ready — they  must 
suppose  us  to  be  ahead  of  them,  depend  upon  it" 

Hardly  had  Philip  given  the  order  when  the  vessel  struck 
heavily  on  the  rocks.  Philip  hastened  aft ;  he  found,  that  the 
rudder  had  been  unshipped,  and  the  vessel  was  immovably 
fixed.  His  thoughts  then  reverted  to  the  admiral.  "Was  he 
on  shore?"  He  ran  forward,  and  the  admiral  was  still  sailing 
on  with  his  poop-light,  about  two  cables'  length  ahead  of  him. 

"  Fire  the  gun,  there,"  cried  Philip,  perplexed  beyond 
measure. 

The  gun  was  fired,  and  immediately  followed  up  by  the 
flash  and  report  of  another  gun  close  astern  of  them.  Philip 
looked  with  astonishment  over  the  quarter,  and  perceived  the 
admiral's  ship  close  astern  to  him  and  evidently  on  shore  as 
well  as  his  own. 

"  Merciful  Heaven ! "  exclaimed  Philip,  rushing  forward, 
(<  what  can  this  be  ?  "  He  In-held  the  other  vessel  with  her 
light  ahead,  still  sailing  on  and  leaving  them.  The  day  was 
now  dawning,  and  there  was  sufficient  light  to  make  out  the 
land.  The  Dort  was  on  shore  not  fifty  yards  from  the  beach* 
180 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

and  surrounded  by  the  high  and  barren  rocks  ;  yet  the  vessel 
ahead  was  apparently  sailing  on  over  the  land.  The  seamen 
crowded  on  the  forecastle  watching  this  strange  phenomenon ; 
at  last  it  vanished  from  their  sight. 

"That's  the  Flying  Dutchman,  by  all  that's  holy!"  cried 
one  of  the  seamen,  jumping  off  the  gun. 

Hardly  had  the  man  uttered  these  words  when  the  vessel 
disappeared. 

Philip  felt  convinced  that  it  was  so,  and  he  walked  away 
aft  in  a  very  perturbed  state.  It  must  have  been  his  father's 
fatal  ship  which  had  decoyed  them  to  probable  destruction. 
He  hardly  knew  how  to  act.  The  admiral's  wrath  he  did  not 
wish,  just  at  that  moment,  to  encounter.  He  sent  for  the 
officer  of  the  watch,  and  having  desired  him  to  select  a  crew 
for  the  boat,  out  of  those  men  who  had  been  on  deck,  and 
could  substantiate  his  assertions,  ordered  him  to  go  on  board 
of  the  admiral  and  state  what  had  happened. 

As  soon  as  the  boat  had  shoved  off',  Philip  turned  his 
attention  to  the  state  of  his  own  vessel.  The  daylight  had 
increased,  and  Philip  perceived  that  they  were  surrounded  by 
rocks,  and  had  run  on  shore  between  two  reefs,  which  ex- 
tended half  a  mile  from  the  mainland.  He  sounded  round  his 
vessel,  and  discovered  that  she  was  fixed  from  forward  to  aft, 
and  that  without  lightening  her,  there  was  no  chance  of 
getting  her  off.  He  then  turned  to  where  the  admiral's  ship 
lay  aground,  and  found  that,  to  all  appearance,  she  was  in 
even  a  worse  plight,  as  the  rocks  to  leeward  of  her  were 
above  the  water,  and  she  was  much  more  exposed,  should  bad 
weather  come  on.  Never,  perhaps,  was  there  a  scene  more 
cheerless  and  appalling:  a  dark  wintry  sky — a  sky  loaded 
with  heavy  clouds — the  wind  cold  and  piercing— the  whole 
line  of  the  coast  one  mass  of  barren  rocks  without  the  slightest 
appearance  of  vegetation  ;  the  inland  part  of  the-  country  pre- 
sented an  equally  sombre  appearance,  and  the  higher  points 
were  capped  with  snow,  although  it  was  not  yet  the  winter 
season.  Sweeping  the  coast  with  his  eye,  Philip  perceived, 
not  four  miles  to  leeward  of  them  (so  little  progress  had  they 
made),  the  spot  where  they  had  deserted  the  commodore 

"Surely  this  has  been  a  judgment  on  him  for  his  cruelty/' 
thought  Philip,  "and  the  prophecy  of  poor  Avenhorn  will 
come  true — more  bones  than  his  will  bleach  on  those  rocks." 
181 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

Philip  turned  round  again  to  where  the  admiral's  ship  was  on 
shore,  and  started  back,  as  he  beheld  a  sight  even  more  dread- 
ful than  all  that  he  had  viewed— the  body  of  Vander  Hagen, 
the  officer  sent  on  board  of  the  admiral,  hanging  at  the  main- 
yard  arm.  "  My  God  !  is  it  possible  ? "  exclaimed  Philip, 
stamping  with  sorrow  and  indignation. 

His  boat  was  returning  on  board,  and  Philip  awaited  it 
with  impatience.  The  men  hastened  up  the  side,  and  breath- 
lessly informed  Philip  that  the  admiral,  as  soon  as  he  had 
heard  the  lieutenant's  report,  and  his  acknowledgment  that 
he  was  officer  of  the  watch,  had  ordered  him  to  be  hanged,  and 
that  he  had  sent  them  back  with  a  summons  for  him  to  repair 
on  board  immediately,  and  that  they  had  seen  another  rope 
preparing  at  the  other  yard-arm. 

"  But  not  for  you,  sir,"  cried  the  men;  "that  shall  never 
be — you  shall  not  go  on  board — and  we  will  defend  you  with 
our  lives." 

The  whole  ship's  company  joined  in  this  resolution,  and 
expressed  their  determination  to  resist  the  admiral.  Philip 
thanked  them  kindly — stated  his  intention  of  not  going  on 
board,  and  requested  that  they  would  remain  quiet,  until  it 
was  ascertained  what  steps  the  admiral  might  take.  He  then 
went  down  to  his  cabin,  to  reflect  upon  what  plan  he  should 
pursue.  As  he  looked  out  of  the  stern-windows,  and  perceived 
the  body  of  the  young  man  still  swinging  in  the  wind,  he 
almost  wished  that  he  was  in  his  place,  for  then  there  would 
be  an  end  to  his  wayward  fate  :  but  he  thought  of  Amine,  and 
felt  that  for  her  he  wished  to  live.  That  the  Phantom  Ship 
should  have  decoyed  him  to  destruction  was  also  a  source  of 
much  painful  feeling,  and  Philip  meditated,  with  his  hands 
pressed  to  his  temples.  "  It  is  my  destiny,"  thought  he  at 
last,  "and  the  will  of  Heaven  must  be  done  :  we  could  not 
have  been  so  deceived  if  Heaven  had  not  permitted  it."  And 
then  his  thoughts  reverted  to  his  present  situation. 

That  the  admiral  had  exceeded  his  powers  in  taking  the  life 
of  the  officer  was  undeniable,  as  although  his  instructions  gave 
him  power  of  life  and  death,  still  it  was  only  to  be  decided 
by  the  sentence  of  the  court-martial  held  by  the  captains 
commanding  the  vessels  of  the  fleet ;  he  therefore  felt  himself 
justified  in  resistance.  But  Philip  was  troubled  with  the  idea 
that  such  resistance  might  lead  to  much  bloodshed ;  and  he 
182 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

was  still  debating  how  to  act,  when  they  reported  to  him  that 
there  was  a  boat  coming  from  the  admiral's  ship.  Philip  went 
upon  deck  to  receive  the  officer,  who  stated  that  it  was  the 
admiral's  order  that  he  should  immediately  come  on  board, 
and  that  he  must  consider  himself  now  under  arrest,  and 
deliver  up  his  sword. 

"  No  !  no ! "  exclaimed  the  ship's  company  of  the  Dorf 
"He  shall  not  go  on  board.  We  will  stand  by  our  captaiiv 
to  the  last." 

"  Silence,  men  !  silence  ! "  cried  Philip.  "  You  must  be 
aware,  sir,"  said  he  to  the  officer,  "  that  in  the  cruel  punish- 
ment of  that  innocent  young  man,  the  admiral  has  exceeded 
his  powers :  and  much  as  I  regret  to  see  any  symptoms  of 
mutiny  and  insubordination,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  if 
those  in  command  disobey  the  orders  they  have  received,  by 
exceeding  them,  they  not  only  set  the  example,  but  give  an 
excuse  for  those  who  otherwise  would  be  bound  to  obey  them, 
to  do  the  same.  Tell  the  admiral  that  his  murder  of  that 
innocent  man  has  determined  me  no  longer  to  consider  myself 
under  his  authority,  and  that  I  will  hold  myself  as  well  as  him 
answerable  to  the  Company  whom  we  serve,  for  our  conduct. 
I  do  not  intend  to  go  on  board  and  put  myself  in  his  power, 
that  he  might  gratify  his  resentment  by  my  ignominious  death. 
It  is  a  duty  that  I  owe  these  men  under  my  command  to  pre- 
serve my  life,  that  I  may,  if  possible,  preserve  theirs  in  this 
strait ;  and  you  may  also  add,  that  a  little  reflection  must  point 
out  to  him  that  this  is  no  time  for  us  to  war  with,  but  to  assist 
each  other  with  all  our  energies.  We  are  here,  shipwrecked 
on  a  barren  coast,  with  provisions  insufficient  for  any  length- 
ened stay,  no  prospect  of  succour,  and  little  of  escape.  As 
the  commodore  truly  prophesied,  many  more  arc  likely  to 
perish  as  well  as  he — and  even  the  admiral  himself  may  be  of 
the  number.  I  shall  wait  his  answer  :  if  he  choose  to  lay  aside 
all  animosity,  and  refer  our  conduct  to  a  higher  tribunal,  I  am 
willing  to  join  with  him  in  rendering  that  assistance  to  each 
other,  which  our  situation  requires  ;  if  not,  you  must  perceive, 
and,  of  course,  will  tell  him  that  I  have  those  with  me  who 
will  defend  me  against  any  attempt  at  force.  You  have  my 
answer,  sir,  and  may  go  on  board." 

The  officer  went  to  the  gangway,  but  found  that  none  of  his 
crew,  except  the  bowman,  were  in  the  boat ;  they  had  gone  up 
183 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

to  gain  from  the  men  of  the  Dort  the  true  history  of  what  they 
had  but  imperfectly  heard  :  and,  before  they  were  summoned 
to  return,  had  received  full  intelligence.  They  coincided  with 
the  seamen  of  the  Dort,  that  the  appearance  of  the  Phantom 
Ship,  which  had  occasioned  their  present  disaster,  was  a  judg- 
ment upon  the  admiral  for  his  conduct  in  having  so  cruelly 
deserted  the  poor  commodore. 

Upon  the  return  of  the  officer  with  Philip's  answer,  the  rage 
of  the  admiral  was  beyond  all  bounds.  He  ordered  the  guns 
aft,  which  would  bear  upon  the  Dort,  to  be  double-shotted, 
and  fired  into  her ;  but  Krantz  pointed  out  to  him  that  they 
could  not  bring  more  guns  to  bear  upon  the  Dort  in  their 
present  situation,  than  the  Dort  could  bring  to  bear  upon 
them  ;  that  their  superior  force  was  thus  neutralised,  and  that 
no  advantage  could  result  from  taking  such  a  step  The 
admiral  immediately  put  Krantz  under  arrest,  and  proceeded 
to  put  into  execution  his  insane  intentions.  In  this  he  was, 
however,  prevented  by  the  seamen  of  the  Lion,  who  neither 
wished  to  fire  upon  their  consort  nor  to  be  fired  at  in  return. 
The  report  of  the  boat's  crew  had  been  circulated  through  the 
ship,  and  the  men  felt  too  much  ill-will  against  the  admiral, 
and  perceived  at  the  same  time  the  extreme  difficulty  of  their 
situation  to  wish  to  make  it  worse.  They  did  not  proceed  to 
open  mutiny,  but  they  went  down  below,  and  when  the  officers 
ordered  thorn  up,  they  refused  to  go  upon  deck  ;  and  the 
officers,  who  were  equally  disgusted  with  the  admiral's  con- 
duct, merely  informed  him  of  the  state  of  the  ship's  company, 
without  naming  individuals  so  as  to  excite  his  resentment 
against  any  one  in  particular.  Such  was  the  state  of  affairs 
when  the  sun  went  down.  Nothing  had  been  done  on  board 
the  admiral's  ship,  for  Krantz  was  under  arrest,  and  the  admiral 
had  retired  in  a  state  of  fury  to  his  cabin. 

In  the  meantime,  Philip  and  the  ship's  company  had  not 
been  idle — they  had  laid  an  anchor  out  astern,  and  hove  taut ; 
they  had  started  all  the  water,  and  were  pumping  it  out,  when 
a  boat  pulled  alongside,  and  Krantz  made  his  appearance  on 
deck. 

"  Captain  Vanderdecken,  I  have  come  to  put  myself  under 
your  orders,  if  you  will  receive  me — if  not,  render  me  your 
protection  ;  for,  as  sure  as  fate,  I  should  have  been  hanged 
to-morrow  morning,  if  I  had  remained  in  my  own  ship.  The 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

men  in  the  boat  have  come  with  the  same  intention— that  of 
joining  you,  if  you  will  permit  them." 

Although  Philip  would  have  wished  it  had  been  otherwise, 
he  could  not  well  refuse  to  receive  Krantz,  under  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case.  He  was  very  partial  to  him,  and  to  save 
his  life,  which  certainly  was  in  danger,  he  would  have  done 
much  more.  He  desired  that  the  boat's  crew  should  return; 
but  when  Krantz  had  stated  to  him  what  had  occurred  on 
board  the  Lion,  and  the  crew  earnestly  begged  him  not  to 
send  them  back  to  almost  certain  death,  which  their  having 
effected  the  escape  of  Krantz  would  have  assured,  Philip 
reluctantly  allowed  them  to  remain. 

The  night  was  tempestuous,  but  the  wind  being  now  off 
shore,  the  water  was  not  rough.  The  crew  of  the  Dort,  under 
the  directions  of  Philip  and  Krantz,  succeeded  in  lightening 
the  vessel  so  much  during  the  night  that  the  next  morning 
they  were  able  to  haul  her  off,  and  found  that  her  bottom 
had  received  no  serious  injury.  It  was  fortunate  for  them 
that  they  had  not  discontinued  their  exertions,  for  the  wind 
shifted  a  few  hours  before  sunrise,  and  by  the  time  that 
they  had  shipped  their  rudder,  it  came  on  to  blow  fresh 
down  the  Straits,  the  wind  being  accompanied  with  a  heavy 
swell. 

The  admiral's  ship  still  lay  aground,  and  apparently  no 
exertions  were  used  to  get  her  off.  Philip  was  much  puzzled 
how  to  act :  leave  the  crew  of  the  Lion  he  could  not ;  nor 
indeed  could  he  refuse,  nor  did  he  wish  to  refi:se,  the  admiral  if 
he  proposed  coming  on  board  ;  but  he  now  made  up  his  mind 
that  it  should  only  be  as  a  passenger,  and  that  he  would  himself 
retain  the  command.  At  present  he  contented  himself  with 
dropping  his  anchor  outside,  clear  of  the  reef,  where  he  was 
sheltered  by  a  bluff  cape,  under  which  the  water  was  smooth 
about  a  mile  distant  from  where  the  admiral's  ship  lay  on 
shore;  and  he  employed  his  crew  in  repleni:  hing  his  water- 
casks  from  a  rivulet  close  to  where  the  ship  was  anchored. 
He  waited  to  see  if  the  other  vessel  got  off,  being  convinced 
that  if  she  did  not,  some  communication  must  soon  take  place. 
As  soon  as  the  water  was  complete,  he  sent  one  of  the  boats 
to  the  place  where  the  commodore  had  been  landed,  having 
resolved  to  take  him  on  board,  if  they  could  find  him  ;  but 
the  boat  returned  without  having  seen  anything  of  him, 
185 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

although  the  men  had  clambered  over  the  hills  to  a  con- 
siderable distance. 

On  the  second  morning  after  Philip  had  hauled  his  vessel  off, 
they  observed  that  the  boats  of  the  admiral's  ship  were  passing 
and  repassing  from  the  shore,  landing  her  stores  and  pro- 
visions ;  and  the  next  day,  from  the  tents  pitched  on  shore,  it 
was  evident  that  she  was  abandoned,  although  the  boats  were 
still  employed  in  taking  articles  out  of  her.  That  night  it  blew 
fresh,  and  the  sea  was  heavy  ;  the  next  morning  her  masts  were 
gone,  and  she  turned  on  her  broadside :  she  was  evidently  a 
wreck,  and  Philip  now  consulted  with  Krant/  how  to  act.  To 
leave  the  crew  of  the  Lion  on  shore  was  impossible  :  they  must 
all  perish  when  the  winter  set  in  upon  such  a  desolate  coast. 
On  the  whole,  it  was  considered  advisable  that  the  first  com- 
munication should  come  from  the  other  party,  and  Philip 
resolved  to  remain  quietly  at  anchor. 

It  was  very  plain  that  there  was  no  longer  any  subordination 
among  the  crew  of  the  Lion,  who  were  to  be  seen,  in  the  day- 
time, climbing  over  the  rocks  in  every  direction,  and  at  night, 
when  their  large  fires  were  lighted,  carousing  and  drinking. 
This  waste  of  provisions  was  a  subject  of  much  vexation  to 
Philip.  He  had  not  more  than  sufficient  for  his  own  crew, 
and  he  took  it  for  granted  that,  so  soon  as  what  they  had 
taken  on  shore  should  be  expended,  the  crew  of  the  Lion 
would  ask  to  be  received  on  board  of  the  Dort. 

For  more  than  a  week  did  affairs  continue  in  this  state, 
when  one  morning  a  boat  was  seen  pulling  towards  the 
ship,  and  in  the  stern-sheets  Philip  recognised  the  officer 
who  had  been  sent  on  board  to  put  him  under  arrest. 
When  the  officer  came  on  deck,  he  took  off  his  hat  to 
Philip. 

"  You  do;  then,  acknowledge  me  as  in  command,"  observed 
Philip. 

"  Yes,  sir,  most  certainly  ;  you  were  second  in  command,  but 
now  you  are  first — for  the  admiral  is  dead." 

"Dead!"  exclaimed  Philip;  "and  how?" 

"  He  was  found  dead  on  the  beach,  under  a  high  cliff,  and 
the  body  of  the  commodore  was  in  his  arms ;  indeed,  they 
were  both  grappled  together.  It  is  supposed,  that  in  his 
walk  up  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  which  he  used  to  take  every 
day,  to  see  if  any  vessels  might  b*;  in  the  Straits,  he  fell  in 
IBS 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

with  the  commodore  —  that  they  had  come  to  contention, 
and  had  both  fallen  over  the  precipice  together.  No  one 
saw  the  meeting,  but  they  must  have  fallen  over  the  rocks, 
as  the  bodies  are  dreadfully  mangled." 

On  inquiry,  Philip  ascertained  that  all  chance  of  saving 
the  Lion  had  been  lost  after  the  second  night,  when  she 
had  beat  in  her  larboard  streak,  and  had  six  feet  of  water 
in  the  hold  ;  that  the  crew  had  been  very  insubordinate,  and 
had  consumed  almost  all  the  spirits  ;  and  that  not  only 
all  the  sick  had  already  perished,  but  also  many  others, 
who  had  either  fallen  over  the  rocks  when  they  were  intoxi- 
cated, or  had  been  found  dead  in  the  morning  from  their 
exposure  during  the  night. 

"  Then  the  poor  commodore's  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled  !  " 
observed  Philip  to  Krantz.  "  Many  others,  and  even  the 
admiral  himself,  have  perished  with  him— peace  be  with 
them  !  And  now  let  us  get  away  from  this  horrible  place  as 
soon  as  possible." 

Philip  then  gave  orders  to  the  officer  to  collect  his  men, 
and  the  provisions  that  remained,  for  immediate  embarkation. 
Krantz  followed  soon  after  with  all  the  boats,  and  before 
night  everything  was  on  ooard.  The  bodies  of  the  admiral 
and  commodore  were  buried  where  they  lay,  and  the  next 
morning  the  Dort  was  under  way,  and  with  a  slanting  wind 
was  laying  a  fair  course  through  the  Straits. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

IT  appeared  as  if  their  misfortunes  were  to  cease  after  the 
tragical  death  of  the  two  commanders.  In  a  few  days  the 
Dort  had  passed  through  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  and  was 
sailing  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  with  a  blue  sky  and  quiet  sea. 
The  ship's  company  recovered  their  health  and  spirits,  and 
the  vessel  being  now  well  manned,  the  duty  was  carried  on 
with  cheerfulness. 

In  about   a    fortnight    they  had    gained  well    up  on    the 
Spanish  coast,  but  although  they  had  seen  many  of  the  in- 
habitants on   the  beach,   they  had    not    fallen  in   with  any 
vessels  belonging  to  the  Spaniards.     Aware  that  if  he  met 
87 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

with  a  Spanish  ship  of  superior  force  it  would  attack  him, 
Philip  had  made  every  preparation,  and  had  trained  his  men 
to  the  guns.  He  had  now,  with  the  joint  crews  of  the 
vessels,  a  well-manned  ship,  and  the  ai.ticipation  of  prize- 
money  had  made  his  men  very  eager  to  fall  in  with  some 
Spaniard,  which  they  knew  that  Philip  would  capture  if  he 
could.  Light  winds  and  calms  detained  them  for  a  month 
on  the  coast,  when  Philip  determined  upon  running  for  the 
Isle  of  St.  Marie,  where,  though  he  knew  it  was  in  possession 
of  the  Spaniards,  he  yet  hoped  to  be  able  to  procure  refresh- 
ments for  the  ship's  company,  either  by  fair  means  or  by  force. 
The  Dort  was,  by  their  reckoning,  about  thirty  miles  from  the 
island,  and  having  run  in  until  after  dark,  they  had  hove  to 
till  the  next  morning.  Krantz  was  on  deck  ;  he  leaned  over 
the  side,  and  as  the  sails  flapped  to  the  masts,  he  attempted 
to  define  the  line  of  the  horizon.  It  was  very  dark,  but  as 
he  watched,  he  thought  that  he  perceived  a  light  for  a 
moment,  and  which  then  disappeared.  Fixing  his  eyes  on 
the  spot,  he  soon  made  out  a  vessel,  hove  to,  and  not  two 
cables'  length  distant.  He  hastened  down  to  apprise  Philip 
and  procure  a  glass.  By  the  time  Philip  was  on  deck,  the 
vessel  had  been  distinctly  made  out  to  be  a  three-masted 
zebec,  very  low  in  the  water.  After  a  short  consultation, 
it  was  agreed  that  the  boats  on  the  quarter  should  be  lowered 
down,  and  manned  and  armed  without  noise,  and  that  they 
should  steal  gently  alongside  and  surprise  her.  The  men 
were  called  up,  silence  enjoined,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the 
boat's  crew  had  possession  of  the  vessel  ;  having  boarded  her 
and  secured  the  hatches  before  the  alarm  could  be  given  by 
the  few  who  were  on  deck.  More  men  were  then  taken 
on  board  by  Krantz,  who,  as  agreed  upon,  lay  to  under  the 
lee  of  the  Dort  until  the  daylight  made  its  appearance.  The 
hatches  were  then  taken  off,  and  the  prisoners  sent  on  board 
of  the  Dort.  There  were  sixty  people  on  board, — a  large 
number  for  a  vessel  of  that  description. 

On  being  interrogated,  two  of  the  prisoners,  who  were 
well  dressed  and  gentlemanlike  persons,  stepped  forward  and 
stated  that  the  vessel  was  from  St.  Mary's,  bound  to  Lima, 
with  a  cargo  of  flour  and  passengers ;  that  the  crew  and 
captain  consisted  of  twenty-five  men,  and  all  the  rest  who 
were  on  board  had  taken  that  opportunity  of  going  to  Lima  ; 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

that  they  themselves  were  among  the  passengers,  and 
trusted  that  the  vessel  and  cargo  would  be  immediately  re- 
leased, as  the  two  nations  were  not  at  war. 

"  Not  at  war  at  home,  I  grant/'  replied  Philip,  "  but  in 
these  seas,  the  constant  aggressions  of  your  armed  ships 
compel  me  to  retaliate,  and  I  shall,  therefore,  make  a  prize  of 
your  vessel  and  cargo.  At  the  same  time,  as  I  have  no  wish 
to  molest  private  individuals,  I  will  land  all  the  passengers  and 
crew  at  St.  Mary's,  to  which  place  I  am  bound  in  order  to 
obtain  refreshments,  which  now  I  shall  expect  will  be  given 
cheerfully  as  your  ransom,  so  as  to  relieve  me  from  resorting 
to  force."  The  prisoners  protested  strongly  against  this,  but 
without  avail.  They  then  requested  leave  to  ransom  the 
vessel  and  cargo,  offering  a  larger  sum  than  they  both 
appeared  to  be  worth  ;  but  Philip,  being  short  of  provisions, 
refused  to  part  with  the  cargo,  and  the  Spaniards  appeared 
much  disappointed  at  the  unsuccessful  issue  of  their  request. 
Finding  that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  part  with  the  pro- 
visions, they  then  begged  hard  to  ransom  the  vessel  ;  and  to 
this,  after  a  consultation  with  Krantz,  Philip  gave  his  assent. 
The  two  vessels  then  made  sail,  and  steered  on  for  the  island, 
then  about  foijr  leagues  distant.  Although  Philip  had  not 
wished  to  retain  the  vessel,  yet,  as  they  stood  in  together,  her 
superior  speed  became  so  manifest  that  he  almost  repented 
that  he  had  agreed  to  ransom  her. 

At  noon,  the  Dort  was  anchored  in  the  roads,  out  of  gunshot, 
and  a  portion  of  the  passengers  allowed  to  go  on  shore  and 
make  arrangements  for  the  ransom  of  the  remainder,  while 
the  prize  was  hauled  alongside,  and  her  cargo  hoisted  into  the 
ship.  Towards  evening,  three  large  boats  with  live-stock  and 
vegetables  and  the  sum  agreed  upon  for  the  ransom  of  the 
xebec  came  alongside  ;  and  as  soon  as  one  of  the  boats  was 
cleared,  the  prisoners  were  permitted  to  go  on  shore  in  it,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Spanish  pilot,  who.  at  the  suggestion  of 
Krantz,  was  retained,  with  a  promise  of  being  released  directly 
the  Dort  was  clear  of  the  Spanish  seas.  A  negro  slave  was 
also,  at  his  own  request,  allowed  to  remain  on  board,  much  to 
the  annoyance  of  the  two  passengers  before  mentioned,  who 
claimed  the  man  as  their  property,  and  insisted  that  it  was  an 
infraction  of  the  agreement  which  had  been  entered  into. 
"  You  prove  my  right  by  your  own  words,"  replied  Philip ; 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  I  agreed  to  deliver  up  all  the  passengers,  but  no  property  ; 
the  slave  will  remain  on  board." 

Finding  their  endeavours  ineffectual,  the  Spaniards  took  a 
haughty  leave.  The  Dort  remained  at  anchor  that  night  to 
examine  her  rigging,  and  the  next  morning  they  discovered 
that  the  xebec  had  disappeared,  having  sailed  unperceived 
by  them  during  the  night. 

As  soon  as  the  anchor  was  up  and  sail  made  on  the  ship, 
Philip  went  down  to  his  cabin  with  Krantz,  to  consult  as  to 
their  best  course.  They  were  followed  by  the  negro  slave, 
who,  shutting  the  door  and  looking  watchfully  round,  said 
that  he  wished  to  speak  with  them.  His  information  was 
most  important,  but  given  rather  too  late.  The  vessel  which 
had  been  ransomed  was  a  government  advice-boat,  the  fastest 
sailer  the  Spaniards  possessed.  The  two  pretended  passengers 
were  officers  of  the  Spanish  navy,  and  the  others  were  the  crew 
of  the  vessel.  She  had  been  sent  down  to  collect  the  bullion 
and  take  it  to  Lima,  and  at  the  same  time  to  watch  for  the 
arrival  of  the  Dutch  fleet,  intelligence  of  whose  sailing  had 
been  some  time  before  received  overland.  When  the  Dutch 
fleet  made  its  appearance,  she  was  to  return  to  Lima  with  the 
news,  and  a  Spanish  force  would  be  detached  against  it. 
They  further  learned  that  some  of  the  supposed  casks  of  flour 
contained  2000  gold  doubloons  each,  others  bars  of  silver ; 
this  precaution  having  been  taken  in  case  of  capture.  That 
the  vessel  had  now  sailed  for  Lima  there  was  no  doubt.  The 
reason  why  the  Spaniards  were  so  anxious  not  to  leave  the 
negro  on  board  of  the  Dort  was  that  they  knew  he  would 
disclose  what  he  now  had  done.  As  for  the  pilot,  he  was  a 
man  whom  the  Spaniards  knew  they  could  trust,  and  for  that 
reason  they  had  better  be  careful  of  him,  or  he  woultl  lead  the 
Dort  into  some  difficulty. 

Philip  now  repented  that  he  had  ransomed  the  vessel,  as  he 
would,  in  all  probability,  have  to  meet  and  cope  with  a  superior 
force,  before  he  could  make  his  way  clear  out  of  these  seas ; 
but  there  was  no  help  for  it.  He  consulted  with  Krantz,  and 
it  was  agreed  that  they  should  send  for  the  ship's  company  and 
make  them  acquainted  with  these  facts  ;  arguing  that  a  know- 
ledge of  the  valuable  capture  which  they  had  made,  would 
induce  the  men  to  fight  well,  and  stimulate  them  with  the 
hopes  of  further  success.  The  ship's  company  heard  the  Intel- 
190 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

ligence  with  delight,  professed  themselves  ready  to  meet 
double  their  force,  and  then,  by  the  directions  of  Philip,  the 
casks  were  brought  up  on  the  quarter-deck,  opened,  and  the 
bullion  taken  out.  The  whole,  when  collected,  amounted  to 
about  half  a  million  of  dollars,  as  near  as  they  could  estimate 
it,  and  a  distribution  of  the  coined  money  was  made  from  the 
capstan  the  very  next  day  ;  the  bars  of  metal  being  reserved 
until  they  could  be  sold,  and  their  value  ascertained. 

For  six  weeks  Philip  worked  his  vessel  up  the  coast,  without 
falling  in  with  any  vessel  under  sail.  Notice  had  been  given 
by  the  advice-boat,  as  it  appeared,  and  everv  craft,  large  and 
small,  was  at  anchor  under  the  batteries.  They  had  nearly 
run  up  the  whole  coast,  and  Philip  had  determined  that  the 
next  day  he  would  stretch  across  to  Eatavia,  when  n  ship  was 
seen  in-shore  under  a  press  of  sail,  running  towards  Lima. 
Chase  was  immediately  given,  but  the  water  shoaled,  and  the 
pilot  was  asked  if  they  could  stand  on.  He  replied  in  the 
affirmative,  stating  that  they  were  now  in  the  shallowest  water, 
and  that  it  was  deeper  within.  The  leadsman  was  ordered  into 
the  chains,  but  at  the  first  heave,  the  lead-line  broke  ;  another 
was  sent  for,  and  the  Dort  still  carried  on  under  a  heavy  press 
of  sail.  Just  then,  the  negro  slave  went  up  to  Philip,  and  told 
him  that  he  had  seen  the  pilot  with  his  knife  in  the  chains, 
and  that  he  thought  he  must  have  cut  the  lead-line  so  far 
through  as  to  occasion  its  being  carried  away,  and  told  Philip 
not  to  trust  him.  The  helm  was  immediately  put  down ;  but 
as  the  ship  went  round  she  touched  on  the  bank,  dragged,  and 
was  again  clear. — "  Scoundrel  !  "  cried  Philip.  "  So  you  cut 
the  lead-line?  The  negro  saw  you,  and  has  saved  us." 

The  Spaniard  leaped  down  from  oft' the  gun,  and,  before  he 
coulJ  be  prevented,  had  buried  his  knife  in  the  heart  of  the 
negro.  "  Maldctto,  take  that  for  your  pains  !  "  cried  he,  in  a 
fury,  grinding  his  teeth  and  flourishing  his  knife. 

The  negro  fell  dead.  The  pilot  was  seized  and  disarmed  by 
the  crew  of  the  Dort,  who  were  partial  to  the  negro,  as  it  *as 
from  his  information  that  they  hail  become  rich. 

"  Let  them  do  with  him  as  they  please,"  said  Krantz  to 
Philip. 

"Yes,"  replied  Philip;  "summary  justice." 

The  crew  debated  a  few  minutes,  and  then  lashed  the  pilot 
negro,  and  carried  him  off  to  the  taffraiL  There  was  a 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

heavy  plunge,  .and  he  disappeared  under  the  edying  waters  In 
the  wake  of  the  vessel. 

Philip  now  determined  to  shape  his  course  for  Batavia.  He 
was  within  a  few  days'  sail  of  Lima,  and  had  every  reason  to 
believe  that  vessels  had  been  sent  out  to  intercept  him. 
With  a  favourable  wind  he  now  stood  away  from  the  coast, 
and  for  three  days  made  a  rapid  passage.  On  the  fourth,  at 
daylight,  two  vessels  appeared  to  windward,  bearing  down 
upon  him.  That  they  were  large  armed  vessels  was  evident ; 
and  the  display  of  Spanish  ensigns  and  pennants,  as  they 
rounded  to;  about  a  mile  to  windward,  soon  showed  that  they 
were  enemies.  They  proved  to  be  a  frigate  of  a  larger  size 
than  the  Dort  and  a  corvette  of  twenty-two  guns. 

The  crew  of  the  Dort  showed  no  alarm  at  this  disparity  of 
force  :  they  clinked  their  doubloons  in  their  pockets  ;  vowed 
not  to  return  them  to  their  lawful  owners,  if  they  could  help  it; 
and  flew  with  alacrity  to  their  guns.  The  Dutch  ensign  was 
displayed  in  defiance,  and  the  two  Spanish  vessels,  again 
putting  their  heads  towards  the  Dort,  that  they  might  lessen 
their  distance,  received  some  raking  shot,  which  somewhat 
discomposed  them,  but  they  rounded  to  at  a  cable's  length,  and 
commenced  the  action  with  great  spirit,  the  frigate  lying  on  the 
beam,  and  the  corvette  on  the  bow  of  Philip's  vessel.  After 
half-an-hour's  determined  exchange  of  broadsides,  the  foremast 
of  the  Spanish  frigate  fell,  carrying  away  with  it  the  maintop- 
mast  ;  and  this  accident  impeded  her  firing.  The  Dort  imme- 
diately made  sail,  stood  on  to  the  corvette,  which  she  crippled 
with  three  or  four  broadsides,  then  tacked,  and  fetched  along- 
side of  the  frigate,  whose  lee-guns  were  still  impeded  with  the 
wreck  of  the  foremast.  The  two  vessels  now  lay  head  and 
•tern,  within  ten  feet  of  each  other,  and  the  action  recom- 
menced to  the  disadvantage  of  the  Spaniard.  In  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  the  canvas  hanging  overside  caught  fire  from  the 
discharge  of  the  guns,  and  very  soon  communicated  to  the 
ship,  the  Dort  still  pouring  in  a  most  destructive  broadside, 
which  could  not  be  effectually  returned.  After  every  attempt 
to  extinguish  the  flames,  the  captain  of  the  Spanish  vessel 
resolved  that  both  vessels  should  share  the  same  fate.  He  put 
his  helm  up,  and,  running  her  on  to  the  Dort,  grappled  with 
her,  and  attempted  to  secure  the  two  vessels  togethc-r.  Then 
raged  the  conflict;  the  Spaniards  attempting  to  pass  their 
1.92 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

grappling-chains,  so  as  to  prevent  the  escape  of  their  enemy, 
and  the  Dutch  endeavouring  to  frustrate  their  attempt.  The 
chains  and  sides  of  both  vessels  were  crowded  with  men  fight- 
ing desperately  ;  those  struck  down  falling  between  the  two 
vessels,  which  the  wreck  of  the  foremast  still  prevented  from 
coming  into  actual  collision.  During  this  conflict,  Philip  and 
Krantz  were  not  idle.  By  squaring  the  after-yards,  and  put- 
ting all  sail  on  forward  they  contrived  that  the  Dort  should  pay 
off  before  the  wind  with  her  antagonist,  and  by  this  manoeuvre 
they  cleared  themselves  of  the  smoke,  which  so  incommoded 
them ;  and  having  good  way  on  the  two  vessels,  they  then 
rounded  to  so  as  to  get  on  the  other  tack,  and  bring  the 
Spaniard  to  leeward.  This  gave  them  a  manifest  advantage, 
and  soon  terminated  the  conflict.  The  smoke  and  flames 
were  beaten  back  on  the  Spanish  vessel — the  fire  which  had 
communicated  to  the  Dort  was  extinguished — the  Spaniards 
were  no  longer  able  to  prosecute  their  endeavours  to  fasten 
the  two  vessels  together,  and  retreated  to  within  the  bulwarks 
of  their  own  vessel ^  and  after  great  exertions  the  Dor!  was 
disengaged,  and  forged  ahead  of  her  opponent,  who  was  soon 
enveloped  in  a  sheet  of  flame.  The  corvette  remained  a  few 
cables'  length  to  windward,  occasionally  firing  a  gun.  Philip 
poured  in  a  broadside,  and  she  hauled  down  her  colours.  The 
action  might  now  be  considered  at  an  end,  and  the  object  was 
to  save  the  crew  of  the  burning  frigate.  The  boats  of  the 
Dort  were  hoisted  out,  but  only  two  of  them  could  swim.  One 
of  them  was  immediately  despatched  to  the  corvette,  with 
orders  for  her  to  send  all  her  boats  to  the  assistance  of  the 
frigate,  which  was  done,  and  the  major  part  of  the  surviving 
crew  were  saved.  For  two  hours  the  guns  of  the  frigate,  as 
they  were  heated  by  the  flames,  discharged  themselves ;  and 
then,  the  fire  having  communicated  to  the  magazine,  she  blew 
up,  and  the  remainder  of  her  hull  sank  slowly  and  disappeared. 
Among  the  prisoners  in  the  uniform  of  the  Spanish  service 
Philip  perceived  the  two  pretended  passengers;  this  proving 
the  correctness  of  the  negro's  statement.  The  two  men-of- 
war  had  been  sent  out  of  Lima  on  purpose  to  intercept  him, 
anticipating,  with  such  a  preponderating  force,  an  easy  victory. 
After  some  consultation  with  Krantz,  Philip  agreed,  that  as 
the  corvette  was  insurh  a  crippled  state,  and  the  nations  were 
not  actually  at  war,  it  would  be  advisable  to  release  her  with  all 
193  N 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  prisoners.  This  was  done,  and  the  Dort  again  made  sail  for 
Batavia,  and  anchored  in  the  roads  three  weeks  after  the 
combat  had  taken  place.  He  found  the  remainder  of  the  fleet, 
which  had  been  despatched  before  them,  and  had  arrived  there 
some  weeks,  had  taken  in  their  cargoes,  and  were  ready  to  sail 
for  Holland.  Philip  wrote  his  despatches,  in  which  he  com- 
municated to  the  Directors  the  events  of  the  voyage  ;  and  then 
went  on  shore,  to  reside  at  the  house  of  the  merchant  who  had 
formerly  received  him,  until  the  Dort  could  be  freighted  for 
her  voyage  home. 


CHAPTER  XX 

TT  E  must  return  to  Amine,  who  is  seated  on  the  mossy 
bank  where  she  and  Philip  conversed  when  they  were  inter- 
rupted by  Schriften  the  pilot.  She  is  in  deep  thought,  with 
her  eyes  cast  down,  as  if  trying  to  recall  the  past.  "  Alas ! 
for  my  mother's  power,"  exclaimed  she*;  "but  it  is  gone — 
gone  for  ever.  This  torment  and  suspense  I  cannot  bear — • 
those  foolish  priests  too  !  "  And  Amine  rose  from  the  bank 
and  walked  towards  her  cottage. 

Father  Mathias  had  not  returned  to  Lisbon.  At  first  he  had 
not  found  an  opportunity,  and  afterwards  his  debt  of  gratitude 
towards  Philip  induced  him  to  remain  by  Amine,  who  appeared 
each  day  to  hold  more  in  aversion  the  tenets  of  the  Christian 
faith.  Many  arid  many  were  the  consultations  with  Father 
Seysen,  many  were  the  exhortations  of  both  the  good  old  men 
to  Amine,  who  at  times  would  listen  without  reply,  and  at 
others  argue  boldly  against  them.  It  appeared  to  them  that 
she  rejected  their  religion  with  an  obstinacy  as  unpardonable 
as  it  was  incomprehensible.  But  to  her  the  case  was  more 
simple :  she  refused  to  believe,  she  said,  that  which  she  could 
not  understand.  She  went  so  far  as  to  acknowledge  the  beauty 
of  the  principles,  the  purity  of  the  doctrine  ;  but  when  the 
good  priests  would  enter  into  the  articles  of  their  faith, 
Amine  would  either  shake  her  head  or  attempt  to  turn  the 
conversation.  This  only  increased  the  anxiety  of  the  good 
Father  Mathias  to  convert  and  save  the  soul  of  one  so  young 
and  beautiful ;  and  he  now  no  longer  thought  of  returning  to 
Lisbon,  but  devoted  his  whole  ti  ic  to  the  instruction  of 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

Amine,  who,  wearied  by  his  incessant  importunities,  almost 
loathed  his  presence. 

Upon  reflection,  it  will  not  appear  surprising  that  Amine 
rejected  a  creed  so  dissonant  to  her  wishes  and  intentions. 
The  human  mind  is  of  that  proud  natui*e,  that  it  requires  all 
its  humility  to  be  called  into  action  before  it  will  bow,  even 
to  the  Deity. 

Amine  knew  that  her  mother  had  possessed  superior  know- 
ledge, and  an  intimacy  with  unearthly  intelligences.  She  had 
seen  her  practise  her  art  with  success,  although  so  young  at 
the  time  that  she  could  not  now  call  to  mind  the  mystic 
preparations  by  which  her  mother  had  succeeded  in  her 
wishes ;  and  it  was  now  that  her  thoughts  were  wholly  bent 
upon  recovering  what  she  had  forgotten,  that  Father  Mathias 
was  exhorting  her  to  a  creed  which  positively  forbade  even 
the  attempt.  The  peculiar  and  awful  mission  of  her  husband 
strengthened  her  opinion  in  the  lawfulness  of  calling  in  the 
aid  of  supernatural  agencies  ;  and  the  arguments  brought  for- 
ward by  these  worthy,  but  not  over-talented,  professors  of  the 
Christian  creed,  had  but  little  effect  upon  a  mind  so  strong 
and  so  decided  as  that  of  Amine — a  mind  which,  bent  as  it 
was  upon  one  object,  rejected  with  scorn  tenets  in  proof  of 
which  they  could  offer  no  visible  manifestation,  and  which 
would  have  bound  her  blindly  to  believe  what  appeared  to 
her  contrary  to  common-sense.  That  her  mother's  art  could 
bring  evidence  of  its  truth  she  had  already  shown,  and  satisfied 
herself  in  the  effect  of  the  dream  which  she  had  proved  upon 
Philip; — but  what  proof  could  they  bring  forward  ? — Records 
— which  they  would  not  permit  her  to  read  ! 

"Oh  that  I  had  my  mother's  art!  "  repeated  Amine  once 
more,  as  she  entered  the  cottage;  "then  would  I  know  where 
my  Philip  was  at  this  moment.  Oh  for  the  black  mirror  in 
which  I  used  to  peer  at  her  command,  and  tell  her  what  passed 
in  array  before  me.  How  well  do  I  remember  that  time — the 
time  of  my  father's  absence,  when  I  looked  into  the  liquid  on 
the  palm  of  my  hand,  and  told  her  of  the  Bedouin  camp— of 
the  skirmish — the  horse  without  a  rider — and  the  turban  ou 
the  sand !"  And  again  Amine  fell  into  deep  thought.  "Yes," 
cried  she,  after  a  time,  "thou  canst  assist  me,  mother  !  Give 
me  in  a  dream  thy  knowledge;  thy  daughter  begs  it  as  a  boon. 
Let  me  think  again.  The  word — what  was  the  word?  what 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

was  the  name  of  the  spirit — Turshoon  ?  Yes,  methinks  it  was 
Turshoon.  Mother  !  mother  !  help  your  daughter." 

"Dost  thou  call  upon  the  Blessed  Virgin,  my  child?"  said 
Father  Mathias,  who  had  entered  the  room  as  she  pronounced 
the  last  words.  "  If  so,  thou  dost  well,  for  she  may  appear  to 
thee  in  thy  dreams  and  strengthen  thee  in  the  true  faith." 

"I  called  upon  my  own  mother,  who  is  in  the  land  of 
spirits,  good  father,"  replied  Amine. 

"  Yes ;  but  as  an  infidel, — not,  I  fear,  in  the  land  of  the 
blessed  spirits,  my  child." 

"  She  hardly  will  be  punished  for  following  the  creed  of 
her  fathers,  living  where  she  did,  where  no  other  creed  was 
known?"  replied  Amine  indignantly.  "If  the  good  on  earth 
are  blessed  in  the  next  world — if  she  had,  as  you  assert  she 
had,  a  soul  to  be  saved — an  immortal  spirit — He  who  made 
that  spirit  will  not  destroy  it  because  she  worshipped  as  her 
fathers  did.  Her  life  was  good  :  why  should  she  be  punished 
for  ignorance  of  that  creed  which  she  never  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  rejecting  ?  " 

"  Who  shall  dispute  the  will  of  Heaven,  my  child  ?  Be 
thankful  that  you  are  permitted  to  be  instructed,  and  to  be 
received  into  the  bosom  of  the  holy  Church." 

"  I  am  thankful  for  many  things,  father ;  but  I  am  weary, 
and  must  wish  you  a  good  night." 

Amine  retired  to  her  room — but  not  to  sleep.  Once  more 
did  she  attempt  the  ceremonies  used  by  her  mother,  changing 
them  each  time,  as  doubtful  of  her  success.  Again  the  censer 
was  lighted — the  chann  essayed  ;  again  the  room  was  filled 
with  smoke  as  she  threw  in  the  various  herbs  which  she  had 
knowledge  of,  for  all  the  papers  thrown  aside  at  her  father's 
death  had  been  carefully  collected,  and  on  many  were  direc- 
tions found  as  to  the  use  of  those  herbs.  "  The  word  !  the 
word!  I  have  the  first — the  second  word!  Help  me,  mother!" 
cried  Amine,  as  she  sat  by  the  side  of  the  bed,  in  the  room, 
which  was  now  so  full  of  smoke  that  nothing  could  be  dis- 
tinguished. "  It  is  of  no  use,"  thought  she  at  last,  letting 
her  hands  fall  at  her  side;  "I  have  forgotten  the  art.  Mother! 
mother  !  help  me  in  my  dreams  this  night." 

The  smoke  gradually  cleared  away,  and  when  Amine  lifted 
up  her  eyes  she  perceived  a  figure  standing  before  her.  At 
first  she  thought  she  had  been  successful  in  her  churm  ;  but 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

as  the  figure  became  more  distinct,  she  perceived  that  it  was 
Father  Mat liias.  who  was  looking  at  her  with  a  severe  frowu 
and  contracted  brow,  his  arms  folded  before  him. 

"  Unholy  child  1  what  dost  thou  ?  " 

Amine  had  roused  the  suspicions  of  the  priests,  not  only 
by  her  conversation,  but  by  several  attempts  which  she  had 
before  made  to  recover  her  lost  art ;  and  on  one  occasion,  in 
which  she  had  defended  it,  both  Father  Mathias  and  Father 
Seysen  had  poured  out  the  bitterest  anathemas  upon  her,  or 
any  one  who  had  resort  to  such  practices.  The  smell  of  the 
fragrant  herbs  thrown  into  the  censer,  and  the  smoke,  which 
afterwards  had  escaped  through  the  door  and  ascended  the 
stairs,  had  awakened  the  suspicions  of  Father  Mathias,  and  he 
had  crept  up  silently,  and  entered  the  room  without  her  per- 
ceiving it.  Amine  at  once  perceived  her  danger.  Had  she 
been  single,  she  would  have  dared  the  priest ;  but  for  Philip's 
sake  she  determined  to  mislead  him. 

"  I  do  no  wrong,  father,"  replied  she  calmly  5  "  but  it 
appears  to  me  not  seemly  that  you  should  enter  the  chamber 
of  a  young  woman  during  her  husband's  absence.  I  might 
have  been  in  my  bed.  It  is  a  strange  intrusion." 

"Thou  canst  not  mean  this,  woman  !  My  age — my  pro- 
fession— are  a  sufficient  warranty,"  replied  Father  Mathias, 
somewhat  confused  at  this  unexpected  attack. 

"Not  always,  father,  if  what  I  have  been  told  of  monks  and 
priests  be  true,"  replied  Amine.  "  I  ask  again,  v.  hy  comest 
thou  here  into  an  unprotected  woman's  chamber?" 

"Because  I  felt  convinced  that  she  was  practising  unholy 
arts." 

"  Unholy  arts  ! — what  mean  you  ?  Is  the  leech's  skill  un- 
holy ?  is  it  unholy  to  administer  relief  to  those  who  suffer — to 
charm  the  fever  and  the  ague,  which  rack  the  limbs  of  those 
•who  live  in  this  unwholesome  climate  ?  " 

"All  charms  are  most  unholy." 

"When  I  said  channs,  father,  I  meant  not  what  you  mean ; 
I  simply  would  have  said  a  remedy.  If  p.  knowledge  of 
certain  wonderful  herbs,  which,  properly  combined,  Mill  form 
a  specific  to  ease  the  suffering  wretch — an  art  well  known 
unto  my  mother,  and  which  I  now  would  fain  recall — if  th;\t 
knowledge,  or  a  wish  to  regain  that  knowledge,  be  unholy, 
then  are  }"ou  correct." 

1.9* 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

*  I  heard  thce  call  upon  thy  mother  for  her  help." 

"  I  did,  for  she  well  knew  the  ingredients ;  but  I,  I  fear,  have 
not  the  knowledge  that  she  had.  Is  that  sinful,  good  father?" 

"  'Tis,  then,  a  remedy  that  you  would  find  ?  "  replied  the 
priest;  "I  thought  that  thou  didst  practise  that  which  is 
most  unlawful." 

"  Can  the  burning  of  a  few  weeds  be  then  unlawful  ?  What 
did  you  expect  to  find  ?  Look  you,  father,  at  these  ashes — 
they  may,  with  oil,  be  rubbed  into  the  pores  and  give  relief— 
but  can  they  do  more  ?  What  do  you  expect  from  them— a 
ghost  ? — a  spirit  ? — like  the  prophet  raised  for  the  King  of 
Israel  ?  "  And  Amine  laughed  aloud. 

"  I  am  perplexed,  but  not  convinced,"  replied  the  priest. 

"I,  too,  am  perplexed  and  not  convinced,"  responded 
Amine  scornfully.  "  I  cannot  satisfy  myself  that  a  man  of 
your  discretion  could  really  suppose  that  there  was  mischief 
in  burning  weeds ;  nor  am  I  convinced  that  such  was  the 
occasion  of  your  visit  at  this  hour  of  the  night  to  a  lone 
woman's  chamber.  There  may  be  natural  charms  more 
powerful  than  those  you  call  supernatural.  I  pray  you,  father, 
leave  this  chamber.  It  is  not  seemly.  Should  you  again 
presume,  you  leave  the  house.  I  thought  better  of  you.  In 
future,  I  will  not  be  left  at  any  time  alone." 

This  attack  of  Amine's  upon  the  reputation  of  the  old 
priest  was  too  severe.  Father  Mathias  immediately  quitted 
the  room,  saying,  as  he  went  out,  «•'  May  God  forgive  you  for 
your  false  suspicions  and  great  injustice !  I  came  here  for 
the  cause  I  have  stated,  and  no  more." 

"  Yes  !  "  soliloquised  Amine,  as  the  door  cksed,  "  I  know 
you  did  ;  but  I  must  rid  myself  of  your  unwelcome  company. 
I  will  have  no  spy  upon  my  actions — no  meddler  to  thwart 
me  in  my  will.  In  your  zeal  you  have  committed  yourself, 
and  I  will  take  the  advantage  you  have  given  me."  Is  not 
the  privacy  of  a  woman's  chamber  to  be  held  sacred  by  you 
sacred  men?  In  return  for  assistance  in  distress— for  food 
and  shelter — you  would  become  a  spy.  How  grateful,  ana 
how  worthy  of  the  creed  which  you  profess ! "  Amine 
opened  her  door  as  soon  as  she  had  removed  the  censer,  and 
summoned  one  of  the  women  of  the  house  to  stay  that  night 
in  her  room,  stating  that  the  priest  had  entered  her  chamber, 
and  she  did  not  like  the  intrusion. 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

:t  Holy  father  !  is  it  possible  ?  "  replied  the  woman. 

Amine  made  no  reply,  but  went  to  bed  ;  but  Father  Mathias 
heard  all  that  passed  as  he  paced  the  room  below.  The  next 
day  he  called  upon  Father  Seysen,  and  communicated  to  him 
what  had  occurred,  and  the  false  suspicions  of  Amine. 

"  You  have  acted  hastily,"  replied  Father  Seysen,  "  to  visit 
a  woman's  chamber  at  such  an  hour  of  the  night." 

"  I  had  my  suspicions,  good  Father  Seysen." 

'•  And  she  will  have  hers.     She  is  young  and  beautiful." 

*'  Now,  by  the  blessed  Virgin — 

*'  I  absolve  you,  good  Mathias,"  replied  Father  Seysen ; 
"but  still,  if  known,  it  would  occasion  much  scandal  to  our 
Church." 

And  known  it  soon  was ;  for  the  woman  who  had  been 
summoned  by  Amine  did  not  fail  to  mention  the  circum- 
stance ;  and  Father  Mathias  found  himself  everywhere  so 
coldly  received,  and,  besides,  so  ill  at  ease  with  himself,  that 
he  very  soon  afterwards  quitted  the  country,  and  returned 
to  Lisbon  ;  angry  with  himself  for  his  imprudence,  but  still 
more  angry  with  Amine  for  her  unjust  suspicions. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

_L  HE  cargo  of  the  Dort  was  soon  ready,  and  Philip  sailed  and 
arrived  at  Amsterdam  without  any  further  adventure.  That 
he  reached  his  cottage,  and  was  received  with  delight  by 
Amine,  need  hardly  be  said.  She  had  been  expecting  him  ; 
for  the  two  ships  of  the  squadron  which  had  sailed  on  his 
arrival  at  Batavia,  and  which  had  charge  of  his  despatches, 
had,  of  course,  carried  letters  to  her  from  Philip,  the  first 
letters  she  had  ever  received  from  him  during  his  voyages. 
Six  weeks  after  the  letters  Philip  himself  made  his  appear- 
ance, and  Amine  was  happy.  The  Directors  were,  of  course, 
highly  satisfied  with  Philip's  conduct,  arid  he  was  appointed  to 
the  command  of  a  large  armed  ship,  which  was  to  proceed  to 
India  in  the  spring,  and  one-third  of  which,  according  to  agree- 
ment, was  purchased  by  Philip  out  of  the  funds  which  he  had 
in  the  hands  of  the  company.  He  had  now  five  months  of 
quick  and  repose  to  pass  away,  previous  to  his  once  more  trust- 

199 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

teg  to  the  elements ;  and  this  time,  as  it  was  agreed,  he  had  to 
make  arrangements  on  board  for  the  reception  of  A  mine. 

Amine  narrated  to  Philip  what  had  occurred  between  her 
and  the  priest  Mathias,  and  by  what  means  she  had  rid 
herself  of  his  unwished-for  surveillance. 

"  And  were  you  practising  your  mother's  arts,  Amine  ?  " 

"Nay,  not  practising  them,  for  I  could  not  recall  them, 
but  I  was  trying  to  discover  them." 

"  Why  so,  Amine  ?  this  must  not  be.  It  is,  as  the  good 
father  said,  f  unholy.'  Promise  me  you  will  abandon  them, 
now  and  for  ever." 

"  If  that  act  be  unholy,  Philip,  so  is  your  mission.  You 
would  deal  and  co-operate  with  the  spirits  of  another  world — - 
I  would  do  no  more.  Abandon  your  terrific  mission — abandon 
your  seeking  after  disembodied  spirits,  stay  at  home  with  your 
Amine,  and  she  will  cheerfully  comply  with  your  request." 

"  Mine  is  an  awful  summons  from  the  Most  High." 

"Then  the  Most  High  permits  your  communion  with  those 
who  are  not  of  this  world  ?  " 

"  He  does ;  you  know  even  the  priests  do  not  gainsay  it, 
although  they  shudder  at  the  very  thought." 

"  If,  then,  He  pennits  to  one  He  will  to  another ;  nay, 
aught  that  I  can  do  is  but  with  His  permission." 

"  Yes,  Amine,  so  does  He  j>ermit  evil  to  stalk  on  the  earth, 
but  He  countenances  it  not." 

"  He  countenances  your  seeking  after  your  doomed  father, 
your  attempts  to  meet  him  ;  nay,  more,  He  commands  it.  If 
you  are  thus  permitted,  why  may  not  I  be  ?  I  am  your  wife,  a 
portion  of  yourself ;  and  when  I  am  left  over  a  desolate  hearth, 
,while  you  pursue  your  course  of  danger,  may  not  I  appeal  also 
to  the  immaterial  world  to  give  me  that  intelligence  which  will 
soothe  my  sorrow,  lighten  my  burden,  and  which,  at  the  same 
time,  can  hurt  no  living  creature  ?  Did  I  attempt  to  practise 
these  arts  for  evil  purposes,  it  were  just  to  deny  them  me,  and 
wrong  to  continue  them  ;  but  I  would  but  follow  in  the  steps 
of  my  husband,  and  seek,  as  he  seeks,  with  a  good  intent" 

"  But  it  is  contrary  to  our  faith." 

"  Have  the  priests  declared  your  mission  contrary  to  their 

faith  ?  or,  if  they  have,  have  they  not  been  convinced  to  the 

contrary,  and  been  awed  to   silence  ?      But  why  argue,  my 

dear  Philip  ?     Shall  I  not  now  be  with  you  ?  and  while  with 

200 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

you  I  will  attempt  no  more.  You  have  my  promise ;  but  if 
separated,  I  will  not  say  but  I  shall  then  require  of  the 
invisible  a  knowledge  of  my  husband's  motions,  when  in 
search  of  the  invisible  also." 

The  winter  passed  rapidly  away,  for  it  was  passed  by  Philip 
in  quiet  and  happiness;  the  spring  came  on,  the  vessel  was  to 
be  fitted  out,  and  Philip  and  Amine  repaired  to  Amsterdam. 

The  Utrecht  was  the  name  of  the  vessel  to  which  he  had 
been  appointed,  a  ship  of  400  tons,  newly  launched,  and 
pierced  for  twenty-four  guns.  Two  more  months  passed 
away,  during  which  Philip  superintended  the  fitting  and  load- 
ing of  the  vessel,  assisted  by  his  favourite  Krantz,  who  served 
in  her  as  first  mate.  Every  convenience  and  comfort  that 
Philip  could  think  of  was  prepared  for  Amine  ;  and  in  the 
month  of  May  he  started,  with  orders  to  stop  at  Gambroon 
and  Ceylon,  run  down  the  Straits  of  Sumatra,  and  from  thence 
to  force  his  way  into  the  China  seas,  the  Company  having 
every  reason  to  expect  from  the  Portuguese  the  most  deter- 
mined opposition  to  the  attempt.  His  ship's  company  was 
numerous,  and  he  had  a  small  detachment  of  soldiers  on  board 
'  to  assist  the  supercargo,  who  carried  out  many  thousand  dollars 
to  make  purchases  at  ports  in  China,  where  their  goods  might 
not  be  appreciated.  Every  care  had  been  taken  in  the  equip- 
ment of  the  vessel,  which  was  perhaps  the  finest,  the  best 
manned,  and  freighted  with  the  most  valuable  cargo,  which 
had  been  sent  out  by  the  India  Company. 

The  Utrecht  sailed  with  a  flowing  sheet,  and  was  soon  clear 
of  the  English  Channel ;  the  voyage  promised  to  be  auspicious, 
favouring  gales  bore  them  without  accident  to  within  a  few 
hundred  miles  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  when,  for  the  first 
time,  they  were  becalmed.  Amine  was  delighted :  in  the 
evenings  she  would  pace  the  deck  with  Philip  ;  then  all  was 
silent,  except  the  splash  of  the  wave  as  it  washed  against  the 
side  of  the  vessel — all  was  in  repose  and  beauty,  as  the  bright 
southern  constellations  sparkled  over  their  heads. 

"  Whose  destinies  can  be  in  these  stars,  which  appear  not  to 
those  who  inhabit  the  northern  regions?"  said  Amine,  as  she 
cast  her  eyes  above,  and  watched  them  in  their  brightness ; 
"  and  what  does  that  falling  meteor  portend  ?  what  causes  its 
rapid  descent  from  heaven  ?" 

"  Do  you,  then,  put  faith  in  stars,  Amine  ?  " 
201 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  In  Araby  we  do  ;  snd  why  not  ?  They  were  not  spread 
over  the  sky  to  give  light — for  what  then  ?  " 

"To  beautify  the  world.     They  have  their  uses,  too." 

"  Then  you  agree  with  me — they  have  their  uses,  and  the 
destinies  of  men  are  there  concealed.  My  mother  was  one  of 
those  who  could  read  them  well.  Alas !  for  me  they  are  a 
sealed  book." 

"  Is  it  not  better  so,  Amine  ?" 

"  Better ! — say  better  to  grovel  on  this  earth  with  our  selfish, 
humbled  race,  wandering  in  mystery,  and  awe,  and  doubt, 
when  we  can  communicate  with  the  intelligences  above ! 
Does  not  the  soul  leap  at  her  admission  to  confer  with  superior 
powers  ?  Does  not  the  proud  heart  bound  at  the  feeling  that 
its  owner  is  one  of  those  more  gifted  than  the  usual  race  of 
mortals  ?  Is  it  not  a  noble  ambition  ?  " 

"  A  dangerous  one — most  dangerous." 

"  And  therefore  most  noble.  They  seem  as  if  they  would 
speak  to  me :  look  at  yon  bright  star — it  beckons  to  me." 

For  some  time  Amine's  eyes  were  raised  aloft ;  she  spoke 
not,  and  Philip  remained  at  her  side.  She  walked  to  the 
gangway  of  the  vessel,  and  looked  down  upon  the  placid 
wave,  pierced  by  the  moonbeams  far  below  the  surface. 

"  And  does  your  imagination,  Amine,  conjure  up  a  race  of 
beings  gifted  to  live  beneath  that  deep  blue  wave,  who  sport 
amid  the  coral  rocks,  and  braid  their  hair  with  pearls  ?  "  said 
Philip,  smiling. 

"  I  know  not,  but  it  appears  to  me  that  it  would  be  sweet  to 
live  there.  You  may  call  to  mind  your  dream,  Philip ;  I  was 
then,  according  to  your  description,  one  of  those  same  beings." 

"You  were,"  replied  Philip  thoughtfully. 

"  And  yet  I  feel  as  if  water  would  reject  me,  even  if  the 
vessel  were  to  sink.  In  what  manner  this  mortal  frafme  of 
mine  may  be  resolved  into  its  elements  I  know  not ;  but  this 
I  do  feel,  that  it  never  will  become  the  sport  of,  or  be  tossed 
by,  the  mocking  waves.  But  come  in,  Philip,  dearest;  it  is 
late,  and  the  decks  are  wet  with  dew." 

When  the  day  dawned,  the  look-out  man  at  the  masthead 
reported  that  he  perceived  something  floating  on  the  still 
surface  of  the  water,  on  the  beam  of  the  vessel.  Krantz  went 
up  with  his  glass  to  examine,  and  made  it  out  to  be  a  small 
boat,  probably  cut  adrift  from  some  vessel.  As  there  was 
202 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

no  appearance  of  wind,  Philip  permitted  a  boat  to  be  sent  to 
examine  it,  and  after  a  long  pull  the  seamen  returned  on 
board,  towing  the  small  boat  astern. 

"There  is  the  body  of  a  man  in  it,  sir,"  said  the  second 
mate  to  Krantz,  as  he  gained  the  gangway  ;  "  but  whether  he 
is  quite  dead  or  not  I  cannot  tell." 

Krantz  reported  this  to  Philip,  who  was  at  that  time 
sitting  at  breakfast  with  Amine  in  the  cabin,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  the  gangway,  to  where  the  body  of  the  man  had 
been  already  handed  up  by  the  seamen.  The  surgeon,  who 
had  been  summoned,  declared  that  life  was  not  yet  extinct, 
and  was  ordering  him  to  be  taken  below,  for  recovery,  when, 
to  their  astonishment,  the  man  turned  as  he  lay,  sat  up,  ami 
ultimately  rose  upon  his  feet  and  staggered  to  a  gun,  when, 
after  a  time,  he  appeared  to  be  fully  recovered.  In  reply  to 
questions  put  to  him,  he  said  that  he  was  in  a  vessel  which 
had  been  upset  in  a  squali,  that  he  had  time  to  cut  away  the 
small  boat  astern,  and  that  all  the  rest  of  the  crew  had 
perished.  He  had  hardly  made  this  answer,  when  Philip, 
with  Amine,  came  out  of  the  cabin,  and  walked  up  to  where 
the  seamen  were  crowded  round  the  man  ;  the  seamen  re- 
treated so  as  to  make  an  opening,  when  Philip  and  Amine, 
to  their  astonishment  and  horror,  recognised  their  old  ac- 
quaintance, the  one-eyed  pilot  Schriften. 

"  He !  he  !  Captain  Vanderdecken,  I  believe — glad  to  see 
you  in  command,  and  you  too,  fair  lady." 

Philip  turned  away  with  a  chill  at  his  heart ;  Amine's  eye 
flashed  as  she  surveyed .  the  wasted  form  of  the  wretched 
creature.  After  a  few  seconds  she  turned  round  and  followed 
Philip  into  the  cabin,  where  she  found  him  with  his  face 
buried  in  his  hands. 

"Courage,  Philip,  courage  !"  said  Amine;  "it  was  indeed 
a  heavy  shock,  and,  I  fear  me,  forebodes  evil ;  but  what  then  ? 
it  is  our  destiny." 

"  It  is !  it  ought  perhaps  to  be  mine,"  replied  Philip, 
raising  his  head ;  "  but  you,  Amine,  why  should  you  be  a 
partner — 

"  I  am  your  partner,  Philip,  in  life  and  in  death.  I  would 
not  die  first,  Philip,  because  it  would  grieve  you  ;  but  your 
death  will  be  the  signal  for  mine,  and  I  will  join  you  quickly." 

"  Surely.  Amine,  you  would  not  hasten  your  own  ?  " 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

"Yes !  and  require  but  one  moment  for  this  little  steel  to 
do  its  duty." 

"  Nay,  Amine,  that  is  not  lawful — our  religion  forbids  it." 

"  It  may  do  so,  but  I  cannot  tell  why.  I  came  into  this 
world  without  my  own  consent ;  surely  I  may  leave  it  without 
asking  the  leave  of  priests  !  But  let  that  pass  for  the  present : 
what  will  you  do  with  that  Schriften  ?  " 

"  Put  him  on  shore  at  the  Cape ;  I  cannot  bear  the  odious 
wretch'.s  presence.  Did  you  not  feel  the  chill,  as  before,  when 
you  approached  him  ?  *' 

"I  did— I  knew  that  he  was  there  before  I  saw  him  ;  but 
still,  I  know  not  why,  I  feel  as  if  I  would  not  send  him  away." 

«  Why  not  ? " 

"  I  believe  it  is  because  I  am  inclined  to  brave  destiny,  not 
to  quail  at  it.  The  wretch  can  do  no  harm." 

"  Yes,  he  can — much  ;  he  can  render  the  ship's  company 
mutinous  and  disaffected  ;  besides,  he  attempted  to  deprive 
me  of  my  relic." 

"  I  almost  wish  he  had  done  so ;  then  you  must  have  dis- 
continued this  wild  search." 

"  Nay,  Amine,  say  not  so ;  it  is  my  duty,  and  I  have  taken 
my  solemn  oath  — 

"  But  this  Schriften — you  cannot  well  put  him  ashore  at  the 
Cape  ;  being  a  Company's  officer,  you  might  send  him  home 
ii  you  found  a  ship  there  homeward  bound  ;  still,  were  I  you, 
I  would  let  destiny  work.  He  is  woven  in  with  ours,  that  is 
certain.  Courage,  Philip,  and  let  him  remain." 

"  Perhaps  you  are  right,  Amine  :  I  may  retard,  but  cannot 
escape,  whatever  may  be  my  intended  fate." 

"  Let  him  remain,  then,  and  let  him  do  his  worst.  Treat 
him  with  kindness — who  knows  what  we  may  gain  from 
him?" 

"  True,  true,  Amine  ;  he  has  been  my  enemy  without  cause. 
Who  can  tell  ?— perhaps  he  may  become  my  friend." 

"  And  if  not,  you  will  have  done  your  duty.  Send  for  him 
now." 

"  No,  not  now — to-morrow ;  in  the  meantime  I  will  order 
him  every  comfort." 

"  We  are  talking  as  if  he  were  one  of  us,  which  I  feel  that 
he  is  not,"  replied  Amine  ;  "  but  still,  mundane  or  not,  we 
cannot  but  offer  mundane  kindness,  and  what  this  world,  or 
204 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

rather  what  this  ship,  affords.  I  long  now  to  talk  with  him, 
to  see  if  I  can  produce  any  effect  upon  his  icelike  frame. 
Shall  I  make  love  to  the  ghoul  ?  "  And  Amine  burst  into  a 
bitter  laugh. 

Here  the  conversation  dropped,  but  its  substance  was  not 
disregarded.  The  next  morning,  the  surgeon  having  re- 
ported that  Schriften  was  apparently  quite  recovered,  he 
was  summoned  into  the  cabin.  His  frame  was  wasted  away 
to  a  skeleton,  but  his  motions  and  his  language  were  as  sharp 
and  petulant  as  ever. 

"  I  have  sent  for  you,  Schriften,  to  know  if  there  is  anything 
that  I  can  do  to  make  you  more  comfortable.  Is  there  any- 
thing that  you  want  ?  " 

"  Want  ? "  replied  Schriften,  eyeing  first  Philip  and  then 
Amine.  "  He  !  he  !  I  think  I  want  filling  out  a  little." 

"  That  you  will,  I  trust,  in  good  time  ;  my  steward  has  my 
orders  to  take  care  of  you." 

"  Poor  man,"  said  Amine,  with  a  look  of  pity,  "  how  much 
he  must  have  suffered  !  Is  not  this  the  man  who  brought 
you  the  letter  from  the  Company,  Philip  ?  " 

"  He  !  he  !  yes  !     Not  very  welcome,  was  it,  lady  ?  " 

"  No,  my  good  fellow  ;  it's  never  a  welcome  message  to 
a  wife  that  sends  her  husband  away  from  her.  But  that  was 
not  your  fault." 

"If  a  husband  will  go  to  sea  and  leave  a  handsome  wife, 
when  he  has,  as  they  say,  plenty  of  money  to  live  upon  on 
shore,  he  !  he  !" 

"  Yes,  indeed,  you  may  well  say  that,"  replied  Amine. 

"  Better  give  it  up.      All  folly,  all  madness — eh,  captain  ?  " 

"I  must  finish  this  voyage,  at  all  events,"  replied  Philip  to 
Amine,  "whatever  I  may  do  afterwards.  I  have  suffered 
much,  and  so  have  you,  Schriften.  You  have  been  twice 
wrecked  :  now  tell  me,  what  do  you  wish  to  do  ?  Go  home 
in  the  first  ship,  or  go  ashore  at  the  Cape,  or — 

"  Or  do  anything,  so  I  get  out  of  this  ship — he  !  he  !  " 

"Not  so.  If  you  prefer  sailing  with  me,  as  I  know  you  are 
a  good  seaman,  you  shall  have  your  rating  and  pay  of  pilot — • 
that  is,  if  you  choose  to  follow  my  fortunes." 

"Follow? — must  follow.  Yes,  I'll  sail  with  you,  Mynheer 
Vanderdecken  ;  I  wish  to  be  always  near  you — he  !  he  !  " 

"  Be  it  so,  then  :  as  soon  as  you  are  strong  again,  you 
205 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

will  go  to  your  duty  ;  till  then,  I  will  see  that  you  want 
for  nothing." 

"  Nor  I,  ray  good  fellow.  Come  to  me  if  you  do,  and  I  will 
be  your  help/'  said  Arnine.  "  You  have  suffered  much  ;  but 
we  will  do  what  we  can  to  make  you  forget  it." 

"  Very  good  ! — very  kind  !  "  replied  Schriften,  surveying 
the  lovely  face  and  figure  of  Amine.  After  a  time,  shrugging 
up  his  shoulders,  he  added  :  «  A  pity  !  Yes,  it  is  !  Must  be, 
though." 

"  Farewell ! "  continued  Amine,  holding  out  her  hand  to 
Schriften. 

The  man  took  it,  and  a  cold  shudder  went  to  her  heart; 
but  she,  expecting  such  a  result,  would  not  appear  to  feel  it. 
Schriften  held  her  hand  for  a  second  or  two  in  his  own,  look- 
ing at  it  earnestly,  and  then  at  Amine's  face.  "  So  fair — so 
good  !  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  I  thank  you.  Lady,  may 
Heaven  preserve  you  !  "  Then  squeezing  the  hand  of  Amine, 
which  he  had  not  released,  Schriften  hastened  out  of  the 
cabin. 

So  great  was  the  sudden  icy  shock  which  passed  through 
Amine's  frame  when  Schriften  pressed  her  hand,  that  when 
with  difficulty  she  gained  the  sofa,  she  fell  upon  it.  After 
remaining  with  her  hand  pressed  against  her  heart  for  some 
time,  during  which  Philip  bent  over  her,  she  said,  in  a  breath- 
less voice,  "  That  creature  must  be  supernatural — I  am  sure  of 
it — I  am  now  convinced.  Well,"  continued  she,  after  a  pause 
of  some  little  while,  "all  the  better,  if  we  can  make  him  a 
friend,  and  if  I  can  I  will." 

"  But  think  you,  Amine,  that  those  who  are  not  of  this 
world  have  feelings  of  kindness,  gratitude,  and  ill-will,  as  we 
have  ?  Can  they  be  made  subservient  ?  " 

"  Most  surely  so.  If  they  have  ill-will — as  we  know  they 
have — they  must  also  be  endowed  with  the  better  feelings. 
Why,  are  there  good  and  evil  intelligences  ?  They  may  have 
disencumbered  themselves  of  their  mortal  clay,  but  the  soul 
must  be  the  same.  A  soul  without  feeling  were  no  soul  at 
all.  The  soul  is  active  in  this  world,  and  must  be  so  in  the 
next.  If  angels  can  pity,  they  must  feel  like  us.  If  demons 
can  vex,  they  must  feel  like  us.  Our  feelings  change,  then 
why  not  theirs ?  Without  feelings,  there  were  no  heaven, 
no  hell.  Here  our  souls  are  confined,  cribbed,  and  overladen 
206 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

— borne  clown  by  the  heavy  flesh  by  which  they  are,  for  the 
time,  polluted  ;  but  the  soul  that  has  winged  its  flight  from 
clay  is,  I  think,  not  one  jot  more  pure,  more  bright,  or  more 
perfect  than  those  within  ourselves.  Can  they  be  made  sub- 
servient, say  you  ?  Yes,  they  can  ;  they  can  be  forced,  when 
mortals  possess  the  means  and  power.  The  evil-inclined  may 
be  forced  to  good,  as  well  as  to  evil.  It  is  not  the  good  and 
perfect  spirits  that  we  subject  by  art,  but  those  that  are  in- 
clined to  wrong.  It  is  over  them  that  mortals  have  the 
power.  Our  arts  have  no  power  over  the  perfect  spirits,  but 
over  those  which  are  evil,  and  which  are  bound  to  obey  and 
do  good,  if  those  who  master  them  require  it." 

"  You  still  resort  to  forbidden  arts,  Amine.     Is  that  right  ?  " 

"Right !  If  we  have  the  power  given  to  us,  it  is  right  to 
use  it." 

"Yes,  most  certainly,  for  good  ;  but  m.t  for  evil." 

"  Mortals  in  power,  possessing  nothing  but  what  is  mundane, 
are  answerable  for  the  use  of  that  power ;  so  those  gifted  by 
superior  means  are  answerable  as  they  employ  those  means. 
Does  the  God  above  make  a  flower  to  grow,  intending  that  it 
should  not  be  gathered  ?  No ;  neither  does  He  allow  super- 
natural aid  to  be  given,  if  He  did  not  intend  that  mortals 
should  avail  themselves  of  it." 

As  Amine's  eyes  beamed  upon  Philip's,  he  could  not  for  the 
moment  subdue  the  idea  rising  in  his  mind,  that  she  was  not 
like  other  mortals ;  and  he  calmly  observed,  "  Am  I  sure, 
Amine,  that  I  am  wedded  to  one  mortal  as  myself?" 

"  Yes,  yes !  Philip,  compose  yourself,  I  am  but  mortal  } 
would  to  Heaven  I  were  not.  Would  to  Heaven  I  were  one 
of  those  who  could  hover  over  you,  watch  you  in  all  your  perils, 
save  and  protect  you  in  this  your  mad  career  ;  but  I  am  but  a 
poor  weak  woman,  whose  heart  beats  fondly,  devotedly  for  you 
— who  for  you  would  dare  all  and  everything — -who,  changed  in 
her  nature,  has  become  courageous  and  daring  from  her  love — • 
and  who  rejects  all  creeds  which  would  prevent  her  from  call- 
ing upon  Heaven,  or  earth,  or  hell,  to  assist  her  in  retaining 
with  her  her  soul's  existence  !  " 

"  Nay,  nay  !  Amine— say  not  you  reject  the  creed.  Does 
not  this" — and  Philip  pulled  from  his  bosom  the  holy  relic — 
"does  not  thlc,  and  the  message  sent  by  it,  prove  our  creed  is 
true  ?  " 

207 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  I  have  thought  much  of  it,  Philip.  At  first  it  startled  me 
almost  into  a  belief;  but  even  your  own  priests  helped  to  un- 
deceive me.  They  would  not  answer  you ;  they  would  have 
left  you  to  guide  yourself ;  the  message  and  the  holy  word,  and 
the  wonderful  signs  given,  were  not  in  unison  with  their  creed, 
and  they  halted.  May  I  not  halt  if  they  did  ?  The  relic  may 
be  as  mystic,  as  powerful  as  you  describe  ;  but  the  agencies 
may  be  false  and  wicked — the  power  given  to  it  may  have 
fallen  into  wrong  hands ;  the  power  remains  the  same,  but 
it  is  applied  to  uses  not  intended." 

"The  power,  Amine,  can  only  be  exercised  by  those  who 
are  friends  to  Him  who  died  upon  it." 

"  Then  is  it  no  power  at  all ;  or  if  a  power,  not  half  so  great 
as  that  of  the  arch-neir.l ;  for  his  can  work  for  good  and  evil 
both.  But  on  this  point,  dear  Philip,  we  do  not  well  agree, 
nor  can  we  convince  each  other.  You  have  been  taught  in  one 
way,  I  another.  That  which  our  childhood  has  imbibed — which 
has  grown  up  with  our  growth,  and  strengthened  with  our  years 
— is  not  to  be  eradicated.  I  have  seen  my  mother  work  great 
charms,  and  succeed.  You  have  knelt  to  priests.  I  blame 
not  you  ! — blame  not,  then,  your  Amine.  We  both  mean  well 
• — I  trust,  do  well." 

"  If  a  life  of  innocence  and  purity  were  all  that  were  re- 
quired, my  Amine  would  be  sure  of  future  bliss." 

"I  think  it  is;  and  thinking  so,  it  is  my  creed.  There 
are  many  creeds :  who  shall  say  which  is  the  true  one  ?  And 
what  matters  it  ? — they  all  have  the  same  end  in  view — a 
future  heaven." 

"True,  Amine,  true,"  replied  Philip,  pacing  the  cabin 
thoughtfully  ;  "  and  yet  our  priests  say  otherwise." 

"  What  is  the  basis  of  their  creed,  Philip  ?  " 

"Charity  and  goodwill." 

"  Does  charity  condemn  to  eternal  misery  those  who  have 
never  heard  this  creed — who  have  lived  and  died  worshipping 
the  Great  Being  after  their  best  endeavours,  and  little  know- 
ledge ?  " 

"  No,  surely." 

Amine  made  no  further  observations ;  and  Philip,  after 
pacing  for  a  few  minutes  in  deep  thought,  walked  out  of  the 
cabin. 

The  Utrecht  arrived  at  the  Cape,  watered,  and  proceeded 
208 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

on  her  voyage,  and  after  two  months  of  difficult  navigation, 
cast  anchor  off  Gambroon.  During  this  time  Amine  had  been 
unceasing  in  her  attempts  to  gain  the  goodwill  of  Schriften. 
She  had  often  conversed  with  him  on  deck,  and  had  done  him 
every  kindness,  and  had  overcome  that  fear  which  his  near 
approach  had  generally  occasioned.  Schriften  gradually  ap- 
peared mindful  of  this  kindness,  and  at  last  to  be  pleased 
with  Amine's  company.  To  Philip  he  was  at  times  civil  and 
courteous,  but  not  always ;  but  to  Amine  he  was  always 
deferent.  His  language  was  mystical — she  could  not  prevent 
his  chuckling  laugh,  his  occasional  "  He  !  he  !  "  from  breaking 
forth.  But  when  they  anchored  at  Gambroon,  he  was  on  such 
terms  with  her  that  he  would  occasionally  come  into  the  cabin  ; 
and  although  he  would  not  sit  down,  would  talk  to  Amine  for 
a  few  minutes,  and  then  depart.  While  the  vessel  lay  at  anchor 
at  Gambroon,  Schriften  one  evening  walked  up  to  Amine, 
who  was  sitting  on  the  poop.  "  Lady,"  said  he,  after  a  pause, 
"yon  ship  sails  for  your  own  country  in  a  few  days." 

"So  I  am  told,"  replied  Amine. 

"  Will  you  take  the  advice  of  one  who  wishes  you  well  ? 
Return  in  that  vessel — -go  back  to  your  own  cottage,  and  stay 
there  till  your  husband  comes  to  you  once  more." 

"  Why  is  this  advice  given  ?  " 

"  Because  I  forebode  danger — nay,  perhaps  death,  a  cruel 
death — to  one  I  would  not  harm." 

"To  me!"  replied  Amine,  fixing  her  eyes  upon  Schriften, 
and  meeting  his  piercing  gaze. 

"  Yes,  to  you.  Some  people  can  see  into  futurity  further 
than  others." 

"  Not  if  they  are  mortal,"  replied  Amine. 

"  Yes,  if  they  are  mortal.  But  mortal  or  not,  I  do  see  that 
which  I  would  avert.  Tempt  not  destiny  further." 

"Who  can  avert  it  ?  If  I  take  your  counsel,  still  it  was  my 
destiny  to  take  your  counsel.  If  I  take  it  not,  still  it  was  my 
destiny." 

"Well,  then,  avoid  what  threatens  you." 

"  I  fear  not,  yet  do  I  thank  you.  Tell  me,  Schriften,  hast 
thou  not  thy  fate  some  way  interwoven  with  that  of  my  hus- 
band ?  I  feel  that  thou  hast." 

"  Why  think  you  so,  lady  ?  " 

"  For  many  reasons  :  twice  you  have  summoned  him — twice 
209  o 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

have  you  been  wrecked,  and  miraculously  reappeared  and 
recovered.  You  know,  too,  of  his  mission — that  is  evident." 

"  But  proves  nothing." 

"  Yes  !  it  proves  much  ;  for  it  proves  that  you  know  what 
was  supposed  to  be  known  but  to  him  alone." 

"  It  was  known  to  you,  and  holy  men  debated  on  it,"  replied 
Schriften,  with  a  sneer. 

"  How  knew  you  that,  again  ?  " 

"He!  he!"  replied  Schriften.  "Forgive  me,  lady;  I  meant 
not  to  affront  you." 

"  You  cannot  deny  that  you  are  connected  mysteriously  and 
incomprehensibly  with  this  mission  of  my  husband's.  Tell  me, 
is  it,  as  he  believes,  true  and  holy  ?  " 

"  If  he  thinks  that  it  is  true  and  holy,  it  becomes  so." 

"  Why,  then,  do  you  appear  his  enemy  ?  " 

"  K  am  not  /its  enemy,  fair  lady." 

"  You  are  not  his  enemy.  Why,  then,  did  yon  once  attempt 
to  deprive  him  of  the  mystic  relic  by  which  the  mission  is  to 
be  accomplished  ?  " 

"  I  would  prevent  his  further  search,  for  reasons  which  must 
not  be  told.  Does  that  prove  that  I  am  his  enemy  ?  Would 
it  not  be  better  that  he  should  remain  on  shore  with  com]>etence 
and  you,  than  be  crossing  the  wild  seas  on  this  mad  search? 
Without  the  relic  it  is  not  to  be  accomplished.  It  were  a 
kindness,  then,  to  take  it  from  him." 

Amine  answered  not,  for  she  was  lost  in  thought. 

"  Lady,"  continued  Schriften,  after  a  time,  "  I  wish  you 
well.  For  your  husband  I  care  not,  yet  do  I  wish  him  no 
harm.  Now,  hear  me  :  if  you  wish  for  your  future  life  to  be 
one  of  ease  and  peace— if  you  wish  to  remain  long  in  this  world 
with  the  husband  of  your  choice,  of  your  first  and  warmest  love 
— if  you  wish  that  he  should  die  in  his  bed  at  a  good  old 
age,  and  that  you  should  close  his  eyes,  with  children's  tears 
lamenting,  and  their  smiles  reserved  to  cheer  their  mother — all 
this  I  see,  and  can  promise  is  in  futurity,  if  you  will  take  that 
relic  from  his  bosom  and  give  it  up  to  me.  But  if  you  would 
that  he  should  suffer  more  than  man  has  ever  suffered,  [Kiss  his 
whole  life  in  doubt,  anxiety,  and  pain,  until  the  deep  wave 
receive  his  corpse,  then  let  him  keep  it.  If  you  would  that 
your  own  days  be  shortened,  and  yet  those  remaining  be  long 
in  human  siuTcrings  -  if  you  would  be  separated  from  him,  and 
210 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

die  a  cruel  death — then  let  him  keep  it.  I  can  read  futurity, 
and  such  must  be  the  destiny  of  both.  Lady,  consider  well  ; 
1  must  leave  you  now.  To-morrow  I  will  have  your  answer." 

Schriften  walked  away  and  left  Amine  to  her  own  reflections. 
For  a  long  while  she  repeated  to  herself  the  conversation  and 
denunciations  of  this  man,  whom  she  was  now  convinced  was 
not  of  this  world,  and  was  in  some  way  or  another  deeply 
connected  with  her  husband's  fate.  "  To  me  he  wishes  well ; 
no  harm  to  my  husband,  and  would  prevent  his  search.  Why 
would  he  ? — that  he  will  not  tell.  He  has  tempted  me,  tempted 
me  most  strangely.  How  easy  'twere  to  take  the  relic  whilst 
Philip  sleeps  upon  my  bosom — but  how  treacherous !  And 
yet  a  life  of  competence  and  ease,  a  smiling  family,  a  good 
old  age  :  what  oflers  to  a  fond  and  doting  wife  !  And  if  not, 
toil,  anxiety,  and  a  watery  grave  ;  and  for  me  !  Pshaw  !  that's 
nothing.  And  yet  to  die  separated  from  Philip,  is  that  nothing? 
Oh  no,  the  thought  is  dreadful. — I  do  believe  him.  Yes,  he 
has  foretold  the  future,  and  told  it  truly.  Could  I  persuade 
Philip?  No!  I  know  him  well;  he  has  vowed,  and  is  not  to 
be  changed.  And  yet,  if  the  relic  were  taken  without  his 
knowledge,  he  would  not  have  to  blame  himself.  Who  then 
would  he  blame  ?  Could  I  deceive  him  ?  I,  the  wife  of  his 
bosom,  tell  a  lie  ?  No,  no  !  it  must  not  be.  Come  what  will, 
it  is  only  destiny,  and  I  am  resigned.  I  would  that  Schriften 
had  not  spoken !  Alas  !  we  search  into  futurity,  and  then 
would  fain  retrace  our  steps,  and  wish  we  had  remained  in 
ignorance." 

"What  makes  you  so  pensive,  Amine?"  said  Philip,  who 
some  time  afterwards  walked  up  to  where  she  was  seated. 

Amine  replied  not  at  first.  "  Shall  I  tell  him  all  ?  "  thought 
she.  "It  is  my  only  chance — I  will."  Amine  repeated  the 
conversation  between  her  and  Schriften.  Philip  made  no 
reply  ;  he  sat  down  by  Amine  and  took  her  hand.  Amine 
dropped  her  head  upon  her  husband's  shoulder.  "  What  think 
you,  Amine  ?"  said  Philip,  after  a  time. 

"  I  could  not  steal  your  relic,  Philip  ;  perhaps  you'll  give  it 
to  me." 

"  And  my  father,  Amine,  my  poor  father — his  dreadful  doom 

to  be  eternal !     He  who  appealed,  was  permitted  to  appeal  to 

his  son,  that  that  dreadful  doom  might  be  averted.     Does  not 

the  conversation  of  this  man  prove  to  you  that  my  mission  is 

211 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

not  false?  Does  not  his  knowledge  of  it  strengthen  all? 
Yet,  why  would  he  prevent  it  ?  "  continued  Philip,  musing. 

"Why,  I  cannot  tell,  Philip,  but  I  would  fain  prevent 
it.  I  feel  that  he  has  power  to  read  the  future,  and  has  read 
aright." 

"  Be  it  so ;  he  has  spoken,  but  not  plainly.  He  has  pro- 
mised me  what  I  have  long  been  prepared  for — what  I  vowed 
to  Heaven  to  suffer.  Already  have  I  suffered  much,  and  am 
prepared  to  suffer  more.  I  have  long  looked  upon  this  world 
as  a  pilgrimage,  and  (selected  as  I  have  been)  trust  that  my 
reward  will  be  in  the  other.  But,  Amine,  you  are  not  bound 
by  oath  to  Heaven,  you  have  made  no  compact.  He  advised 
you  to  go  home.  He  talked  of  a  cruel  death.  Follow  his 
advice  and  avoid  it." 

"  I  am  not  bound  by  oath,  Philip ;  but  hear  me  :  as  I  hope 
for  future  bliss,  I  now  bind  myself." 

"  Hold,  Amine  ! " 

"  Nay,  Philip,  you  cannot  prevent  me ;  for  if  you  do  now, 
I  will  repeat  it  when  you  are  absent.  A  cruel  death  were 
a  charity  to  me,  for  I  shall  not  see  you  suffer.  Then  may  I 
never  expect  future  bliss,  may  eternal  misery  be  my  portion, 
if  I  leave  you  as  long  as  fate  permits  us  to  be  together.  I  am 
yours — your  wife  ;  my  fortunes,  my  present,  my  future,  myall, 
are  embarked  with  you,  and  destiny  may  do  its  worst,  for 
Amine  will  not  quail.  I  have  no  recreant  heart  to  turn  aside 
from  danger  or  from  suffering.  In  that  one  point,  Philip,  at 
least,  you  chose,  you  wedded  well." 

Philip  raised  her  hand  to  his  lips  in  silence,  and  the  conver- 
sation was  not  resumed.  The  next  evening  Schriften  came  up 
again  to  Amine.  "  Well,  lady  ?  "  said  he. 

"  Schriften,  it  cannot  be,"  replied  Amine  ;  "yet  do  I  thank 
you  much." 

"  Lady,  if  he  must  follow  up  his  mission,  why  should  you?" 

"Schriften,  I  am  his  wife— his  for  ever,  in  this  world  and 
the  next.  You  cannot  blame  me." 

"  No,"  replied  Schriften,  "  I  do  not  blame,  I  admire  you.  I 
feel  sorry.  But,  after  all,  what  is  death?  Nothing.  He! 
he  ! "  and  Schriften  hastened  away  and  left  Amine  to  herself 


218 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 


CHAPTER  XXH 

J.  HE  Utrecht  sailed  from  Gambroon,  touched  at  Ceylon,  and 
proceeded  on  her  voyage  in  the  Eastern  seas.  Schriften  still 
remained  on  board  ;  but  since  his  last  conversation  with  Amine 
he  had  kept  aloof,  and  appeared  to  avoid  both  her  and  Philip  ; 
still  there  was  not,  as  before,  any  attempt  to  make  the  ship's 
company  disaffected,  nor  did  he  indulge  in  his  usual  taunts  and 
sneers.  The  communication  he  had  made  to  Amine  had  also 
its  effect  upon  her  and  Philip ;  they  were  more  pensive  and 
thoughtful  ;  each  attempted  to  conceal  their  gloom  from  the 
other,  and  when  they  embraced,  it  was  with  the  mournful 
feeling  that  perhaps  it  was  an  indulgence  they  would  soon  be 
deprived  of:  at  the  same  time,  they  steeled  their  hearts  to 
endurance  and  prepared  to  meet  the  worst.  Krantz  wondered 
at  the  change,  but  of  course  could  not  account  for  it.  The 
Utrecht  was  not  far  from  the  Andaman  Isles,  when  Krantz, 
who  had  watched  the  barometer,  came  in  early  one  morning 
and  called  Philip. 

"We  have  every  prospect  of  a  typhoon,  sir,"  said  Krantz; 
"the  glass  and  the  weather  are  both  threatening." 

"Then  we  must  make  all  snug.  Send  down  top-gallant 
yards  and  small  sails  directly.  We  will  strike  top-gallant 
masts.  I  will  be  out  in  a  minute." 

Philip  hastened  on  deck.  The  sea  was  smooth,  but  already 
the  moaning  of  the  wind  gave  notice  of  the  approaching  storm. 
The  vacuum  in  the  air  was  about  to  be  filled  up,  and  the  con- 
vulsion would  be  terrible  ;  a  white  haze  gathered  fast,  thicker 
and  thicker ;  the  men  were  turned  up,  everything  of  weight 
was  sent  below,  and  the  guns  were  secured.  Now  came  a 
blast  of  wind  which  careened  the  ship,  passed  over,  and  in 
a  minute  she  righted  as  before  ;  then  another  and  another, 
fiercer  and  fiercer  still.  The  sea,  although  smooth,  at  last 
appeared  white  as  a  sheet  with  foam,  as  the  typhoon  swept 
along  in  its  impetuous  career ;  it  burst  upon  the  vessel,  which 
bowed  down  to  her  gunnel  and  there  remained  ;  in  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  the  hurricane  had  passed  over,  and  the  vessel  was 
relieved  ;  but  the  sea  had  risen,  and  the  wind  was  strong.  In 
another  hour  the  blast  again  came,  more  wild,  more  furious 
213 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

than  the  first;  the  waves  were  dashed  into  their  faces, 
torrents  of  rain  descended,  the  ship  was  thrown  on  her  beam 
ends,  and  thus  remained  till  the  wild  blast  had  passed  away, 
to  sweep  destruction  far  beyond  them,  leaving  behind  it  a 
tumultuous,  angry  sea. 

"It  is  nearly  over,  I  believe,  sir,"  said  Krantz.  "It  is 
clearing  up  a  little  to  windward." 

"  We  have  had  the  worst  of  it,  I  believe,"  said  Philip. 

"  No !  there  is  worse  to  come,"  said  a  low  voice  near  to 
Philip.  It  was  Schriften  who  spoke. 

"A  vessel  to  windward  scudding  before  the  gale,"  cried 
Krantz. 

Philip  looked  to  windward,  and  in  the  spot  where  the 
horizon  was  clearest  he  saw  a  vessel  under  topsails  and  fore- 
sail, standing  right  down.  "  She  is  a  large  vessel ;  bring  me 
my  glass."  The  telescope  was  brought  from  the  cabin,  but 
before  Philip  could  use  it  a  haze  had  again  gathered  up  to 
windward,  and  the  vessel  was  not  to  be  seen. 

"Thick  again,"  observed  Philip,  as  he  shut  his  telescope; 
"we  must  look  out  for  that  vessel,  that  she  does  not  run  too 
close  to  us." 

"She  has  seen  us,  no  doubt,  sir,"  said  Krantz. 

After  a  few  minutes  the  typhoon  again  raged,  and  the  atmo- 
sphere was  of  a  murkv  gloom.  It  seemed  as  if  some  heavy 
fog  had  been  hurled  along  by  the  furious  wind;  nothing  was 
to  be  distinguished  except  the  white  foam  of  the  sea,  and 
that  not  the  distance  of  half  a  cable's  length,  where  it  was 
\ost  in  one  dark  grey  mist.  The  storm-staysail,  yielding  to 
the  force  of  the  wind,  was  rent  into  strips,  and  flogged  and 
cracked  with  a  noise  even  louder  than  the  gale.  The  furious 
blast  again  blew  over,  and  the  mist  cleared  up  a  little. 

"  Ship  on  the  weather  beam  close  aboard  of  us,"  cried  one 
of  the  men. 

Krantz  and  Philip  sprang  upon  the  gunwale,  and  beheld 
the  large  ship  bearing  right  down  upon  them,  not  three 
cables'  length  distant. 

"  Helm  up  !  she  does  not  see  us,  and  she  will  be  aboard  of 
us  !  "  cried  Philip.  "  Helm  up,  I  say,  hard  up,  quick  !  " 

The  helm  was  put  up,  as  the  men,  perceiving  their  imminent 
danger,  climbed  upon  the  guns  to  look  if  the  vessel  altered 
her  course  ;  but  no— down  she  came,  and  the  head-sails  of 
211 


THE   PHANTOM    SHIP 

the  Utrecht  having  been  carried  away,  to  their  horror  they 
perceived  that  she  would  not  answer  her  helm,  and  pay  off 
as  they  required. 

"  Ship  ahoy  ! "  roared  Philip  through  his  trumpet — but  the 
gale  drove  the  sound  back. 

"  Ship  ahoy  \ "  cried  Krantz  on  the  gunwale,  waving  his  hat. 
It  was  useless — down  she  came,  with  the  waters  foaming  under 
her  bows,  and  was  now  within  pistol-shot  of  the  Utrecht. 

"  Ship  ahoy ! "  roared  all  the  sailors,  with  a  shout  tlrtit 
must  have  been  heard  ;  it  was  not  attended  to  down  came 
the  vessel  upon  them,  .and  now  her  cutwater  was  within  ten 
yards  of  the  Utrecht.  The  men  of  the  Utrecht,  who  expected 
that  their  vessel  would  be  severed  in  half  by  the  concussion, 
climbed  upon  the  weather  gunwale,  all  re;,dy  to  catch  at  the 
repes  of  the  other  vessel  and  climb  on  board  of  her.  Amine, 
who  had  been  i-urprised  at  the  noise  on  deck,  had  come  out, 
and  had  taken  Philip  by  the  arm. 

"Trust  to  me — the  shock —  "  said  Philip.  He  said  no 
more  ;  the  cutwater  of  the  stranger  touched  their  sides  ;  one 
general  cry  was  raised  by  the  sailors  of  the  ['free/it — they 
sprang  to  catch  at  the  rigging  of  the  other  vessel's  bowsprit, 
which  was  now  pointed  between  their  masts — they  caught  at 
nothing — nothing — there  was  no  shock— no  concussion  of  the 
two  vessels — the  stranger  appeared  to  cleave  through  them — 
her  hull  passed  along  in  silence — no  cracking  of  timbers — no 
falling  of  masts — the  foreyard  pas-sed  through  their  mainsail, 
yet  the  canvas  was  unrent — the  whole  vessel  appeared  to  cut 
through  the  Utrecht,  yet  left  no  trace  of  injury — not  fast,  but 
slowly,  as  if  she  were  really  sawing  through  her  by  the 
heaving  and  tossing  of  the  sea  with  her  sharp  prow.  The 
stranger's  forechains  had  passed  their  gunwale  before  Philip 
could  recover  himself.  "Amine,"  cried  he  at  last,  "the 
Phantom  Ship  !— my  father  !  " 

The  seamen  of  the  Utrecht,  more  astonished  by  the  marvel- 
lous result  than  by  their  former  danger,  threw  themselves 
down  upon  deck  ;  some  hastened  below,  some  prayed,  others 
were  dumb  with  astonishment  and  fear.  Amine  appeared 
more  calm  than  any,  not  excepting  Philip ;  she  surveyed  the 
vessel  as  it  slowly  forced  its  wav  through  ;  she  beheld  the 
seamen  on  board  of  her  coolly  leaning  over  her  gunwale,  as 
if  deriding  the  destruction  they  had  occasioned  ;  she  looked 
215 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

for  Vanderclecken  himself,  and  on  the  poop  of  the  vessel,  with 
his  trumpet  under  his  arm,  she  beheld  the  image  of  her 
Philip — the  same  hardy,  strong  build — the  same  features — 
about  the  same  age  apparently — there  could  be  no  doubt  it 
was  the  doomed  Vanderdecken. 

"See,  Philip,"  said  she,  "see  your  father!" 

"Even  so — Merciful  Heaven!     It  is — it  is!"  and  Philip, 
overpowered  by  his  feelings,  sank  upon  deck. 

'  The  vessel  had  now  passed  over  the  Utrecht ;  the  form  of 
the  elder  Vanderdecken  was  seen  to  walk  aft  and  look  over 
the  taffrail ;  Amine  perceived  it  to  start  and  turn  away  sud- 
denly— she  looked  down,  and  saw  Schriften  shaking  his  fist 
in  defiance  at  the  supernatural  being.  Again  the  Phantom 
Ship  flew  to  leeward  before  the  gale,  and  was  soon  lost  in  the 
mist ;  but  before  that  Amine  had  turned  and  perceived  the 
situation  of  Philip.  No  one  but  herself  and  Schriften  ap- 
peared able  to  act  or  move.  She  caught  the  pilot's  eye, 
beckoned  to  him,  and  with  his  assistance  Philip  was  led 
into  the  cabin. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

I  HAVE  then  seen  him,"  said  Philip,  after  he  had  lain  down 
on  the  sofa  in  the  cabin  for  some  minutes  to  recover  himself, 
while  Amine  bent  over  him.  "  I  have  at  last  seen  him, 
Amine  !  Can  you  doubt  now  ?  " 

"  No,  Philip,  I  have  now  no  doubt,"  replied  Amine  mourn- 
fully ;  "but  take  courage,  Philip." 

"  For  myself,  I  want  not  courage — but  for  you,  Amine  ; 
you  know  that  his  appearance  portends  a  mischief  that  will 
surely  come." 

"  Let  it  come,"  replied  Amine  calmly ;  "  I  have  long  been 
prepared  for  it,  and  so  have  you." 

"  Yes,  for  myself ;  but  not  for  you." 

"  You  have  been  wrecked  often,  and  have  been  saved — 
then  why  should  not  I  ? " 

"  But  the  sufferings  !  " 

"Those  suffer  least  who  have  most  courage  to  bear  up 
against  them.  I  am  but  a  woman,  weak  and  frail  in  body, 
but  I  trust  I  have  that  within  me  which  will  not  make  you 
216 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

feel  ashamed  of  Amine.  No,  Philip,  you  will  have  no  wail- 
ing ;  no  expression  of  despair  from  A  mine's  lips ;  if  she  can 
console  you,  she  will ;  if  she  can  assist  you,  she  will ;  but  come 
what  may,  if  she  cannot  serve  you,  at  least  she  will  prove  no 
burden  to  you." 

"  Your  presence  in  misfortune  would  unnerve  me,  Amine." 

"  It  shall  not ;  it  shall  add  to  your  resolution.  Let  fate  do 
its  worst." 

"  Depend  upon  it,  Amine,  that  will  be  ere  long." 

"Be  it  so,"  replied  Amine;  "but,  Philip,  it  were  as  well 
you  showed  yourself  on  deck ;  the  men  are  frightened,  and 
your  absence  will  be  observed." 

"  You  are  right,"  said  Philip  ;  and  rising  and  embracing  her, 
he  left  the  cabin. 

"  It  is  but  too  true,  then,"  thought  Amine.  "Now  to  pre- 
pare for  disaster  and  death  ;  the  warning  has  come.  I  would 
I  could  know  more.  Oh  !  mother,  mother,  look  down  upon 
thy  child,  and  in  a  dream  reveal  the  mystic  arts  which  I  have 
forgotten— then  should  I  know  more;  but  I  have  promised 
Philip,  that  unless  separated  —  yes,  that  idea  is  worse  than 
death,  and  I  have  a  sad  foreboding;  my  courage  fails  me 
only  when  I  think  of  that !  " 

Philip,  on  his  return  to  the  deck,  found  the  crew  of  the 
vessel  in  great  consternation.  Krantz  himself  appeared  be- 
wildered— he  had  not  forgotten  the  appearance  of  the  Phantom 
Ship  off  Desolation  Harbour,  and  the  vessels  following  her  to 
their  destruction.  This  second  appearance,  more  awful  than 
the  former,  quite  unmanned  him  ;  and  when  Philip  came  out 
of  the  cabin  he  was  leaning  in  gloomy  silence  against  the 
weather-bulkhead. 

"  We  shall  never  reach  port  again,  sir,"  said  he  to  Philip,  as 
he  came  up  to  him. 

"  Silence,  silence  ;  the  men  may  hear  you." 

"It  matters  not;  they  think  the  same,"  replied  Krantz. 

"  But  they  are  wrong,"  replied  Philip,  turning  to  the  sea- 
men. "  My  lads  !  that  some  disaster  may  happen  to  us,  after 
the  appearance  of  this  vessel,  is  most  probable.  I  have  seen 
her  before  more  than  once,  and  disasters  did  then  happen  ; 
but  here  I  am,  alive  and  well,  therefore  it  does  not  prove 
that  we  cannot  escape  as  I  have  before  done.  We  must  do 
our  best,  and  trust  in  Heaven.  The  gale  is  breaking  fast, 
217 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

and  in  a  few  hours  we  shall  have  fine  weather.  I  have  met 
this  Phantom  Ship  before,  and  care  not  how  often  I  meet  it 
again.  Mr.  Krantz,  get  up  the  spirits — the  men  have  had 
hard  work,  and  must  be  fatigued." 

The  very  prospect  of  obtaining  liquor  appeared  to  give 
courage  to  the  men  ;  they  hastened  to  obey  the  order,  and  the 
quantity  served  out  was  sufficient  to  give  courage  to  the  most 
fearful,  and  induce  others  to  defy  old  Vanderdecken  and  his 
whole  crew  of  imps.  The  next  morning  the  weather  was  fine, 
the  sea  smooth,  and  the  Utrecht  went  gaily  on  her  voyage. 

Many  flays  of  gentle  breezes  and  favouring  winds  gradually 
wore  off  the  panic  occasioned  by  the  supernatural  appearance  ; 
and,  if  not  forgotten,  it  was  referred  to  either  in  jest  or  with 
indifference.  They  now  had  run  through  the  Straits  of  Malacca, 
and  entered  the  Polynesian  archipelago.  Philip's  orders  were 
to  refresh  and  call  for  instructions  at  the  small  island  of  Boton, 
then  in  possession  of  the  Dutch.  They  arrived  there  in  safety, 
and  after  remaining  two  days  again  sailed  on  their  voyage, 
intending  to  make  their  passage  between  the  Celebes  and  the 
island  of  Galago.  The  weather  was  still  clear  and  the  wind 
light ;  they  proceeded  cautiously,  on  account  of  the  reefs  and 
currents,  and  with  a  careful  watch  for  the  piratical  vessels 
which  have  for  centuries  infested  those  seas ;  but  they  were 
not  molested,  and  had  gained  well  up  among  the  islands  to 
the  north  of  Galago  when  it  fell  calm,  and  the  vessel  was 
borne  to  the  eastward  of  it  by  the  current.  The  calm  lasted 
several  days,  and  they  could  procure  no  anchorage  ;  at  last 
they  found  themselves  among  the  cluster  of  islands  near  to 
the  northern  coast  of  New  Guinea. 

The  anchor  was  dropped,  and  the  sails  furled  for  the  night ; 
a  drizzling  small  rain  came  on,  the  weather  was  thick,  and 
watches  were  stationed  in  every  part  of  the  ship,  that  they 
might  not  be  surprised  by  the  pirate  proas,  for  the  current 
ran  past  the  ship  at  the  rate  of  eight  or  nine  miles  per  hour, 
and  these  vessels,  if  hid  among  the  islands,  might  sweep  down 
upon  them  unperceived. 

It  was  twelve  o'clock  at  night  when  Philip,  who  was  in 
bed,  was  awakened  by  a  shock  ;  he  thought  it  might  be  a 
proa  running  alongside,  and  he  started  from  his  bed  and  ran 
out.  He  found  Krantz,  who  hid  been  awakened  by  the  same 
cause,  runn'ng  up  u:i  lr  -ssed.  Another  shock  succeeded;  and 
218 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

the  ship  careened  to  port.  Philip  then  knew  that  the  ship 
was  on  shore. 

The  thickness  of  the  night  prevented  them  from  ascertain- 
ing where  they  were,  but  the  lead  was  thrown  over  the  side, 
and  they  found  that  they  were  lying  on  shore  on  a  sandbank, 
with  not  more  than  fourteen  feet  water  on  the  deepest  side, 
and  that  they  were  broadside  on  with  a  strong  current  pressing 
them  farther  up  on  the  bank  ;  indeed,  the  current  ran  like  a 
mill-race,  and  each  minute  they  were  swept  into  shallow 
water. 

On  examination  they  found  that  the  ship  had  dragged  her 
anchor,  which,  with  the  cable,  was  still  taut  from  the  star- 
board bow,  but  this  did  not  appear  to  prevent  the  vessel 
from  being  swept  farther  up  on  the  bank.  It  was  supposed 
that  the  anchor  had  parted  at  the  shank,  and  another  anchor 
was  let  go. 

Nothing  more  could  be  done  till  daybreak,  and  impatiently 
did  they  wait  till  the  next  morning.  As  the  sun  rose  the 
mist  cleared  away,  and  they  discovered  that  they  were  on 
shore  on  a  sandbank,  a  small  portion  of  which  was  above 
water,  and  round  which  the  current  ran  with  great  impetuosity. 
About  three  miles  from  them  was  a  cluster  of  small  islands 
with  cocoa-trees  growing  on  them,  but  with  no  appearance 
of  inhabitants. 

"  I  fear  we  have  little  chance,"  observed  Krantz  to  Philip. 
"  If  we  lighten  the  vessel,  the  anchor  may  not  hold,  and  we 
shall  be  swept  farther  on,  and  it  is  impossible  to  lay  out  an 
anchor  against  the  force  of  this  current." 

"At  all  events  we  must  try  ;  but  I  grant  that  our  situation 
is  anything  but  satisfactory.  Send  all  the  hands  aft." 

The  men  came  aft,  gloomy  and  dispirited. 

"My  lads,"  said  Philip,  "why  are  you  disheartened?" 

"We  are  doomed,  sir;  we  knew  it  would  be  so." 

"I  thought  it  probable  that  the  ship  would  be  lost — I  told 
you  so ;  but  the  loss  of  the  ship  does  not  involve  that  of  the 
ship's  company— nay,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  ship  is  to 
be  lost,  although  she  may  be  in  great  difficulty,  as  she  is  at 
present.  What  fear  is  there  for  us,  my  men  ?  the  waiter  is 
smooth — we  have  plenty  of  time  before  us — we  can  make 
a  raft  and  take  to  our  boats — it  never  blows  among  these 
islands^  and  we  have  land  close  under  our  lee.  Let  us  first 
2J9 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

try  what  we  can  do  with  the  ship ;  if  we  fail  we  must  then 
take  care  of  ourselves." 

The  men  caught  at  the  idea  and  went  to  work  willingly ; 
the  water-casks  were  started,  the  pumps  set  going,  and  every- 
thing that  could  be  spared  was  thrown  over  to  lighten  the 
ship ;  but  the  anchor  still  dragged,  from  the  strength  of  the 
current  and  bad  holding-ground ;  and  Philip  and  Krantz  ]>er- 
ceived  that  they  were  swept  farther  on  the  bank. 

Night  came  on  before  they  quitted  their  toil,  and  then  a 
fresh  breeze  sprang  up  and  created  a  swell,  which  occasioned 
the  vessel  to  beat  on  the  hard  sand  ;  thus  did  they  continue 
until  the  next  morning.  At  daylight  the  men  resumed  their 
labours,  and  the  pumps  were  again  manned  to  clear  the  vessel 
of  the  water  wliich  had  been  started,  but  after  a  time  they 
pumped  up  sand.  This  told  them  that  a  plank  had  started, 
and  that  their  labours  were  useless ;  the  men  left  their  work, 
but  Philip  again  encouraged  them,  and  pointed  out  that  they 
could  easily  save  themselves,  and  all  that  they  had  to  do  was 
to  construct  a  raft  which  would  hold  provisions  for  them,  and 
receive  that  portion  of  the  crew  who  could  not  be  taken  into 
the  boats. 

After  some  repose  the  men  again  set  to  work  ;  the  topsails 
were  struck,  the  yards  lowered  down,  and  the  raft  was  com- 
menced under  the  lee  of  the  vessel,  where  the  strong  current 
was  checked.  Philip,  recollecting  his  former  disaster,  took 
great  pains  in  the  construction  of  this  raft,  and  aware  that  as 
the  water  and  provisions  were  expended  there  would  be  no 
occasion  to  tow  so  heavy  a  mass,  he  constructed  it  in  two 
parts  which  might  easily  be  severed,  and  thus  the  boats  would 
have  less  to  tow,  as  soon  as  circumstances  would  enable  them 
to  part  with  one  of  them. 

Night  again  terminated  their  labours,  and  the  men  retired 
to  rest,  the  weather  continuing  fine,  with  very  little  wind.  By 
noon  the  next  day  the  raft  was  complete  ;  water  and  provisions 
were  safely  stowed  on  board  :  a  secure  and  dry  place  was  fitted 
up  for  Amine  in  the  centre  of  one  portion  ;  spare  ropes,  sails, 
and  everything  which  could  prove  useful,  in  case  of  their  being 
forced  on  shore,  were  put  in.  Muskets  and  ammunition  were 
also  provided,  and  everything  was  ready,  when  the  men  came 
aft  and  pointed  out  to  Philip  that  there  was  plenty  of  money 
pn  board,  which  it  was  fol)y  to  leave,  and  that  they  wished  tQ 
220 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

carry  as  much  as  they  could  away  with  them.  As  this  intima- 
tion was  given  in  a  way  that  made  it  evident  they  intended 
that  it  should  be  complied  with,  Philip  did  not  refuse  ;  but 
resolved  in  his  own  mind,  that  when  they  arrived  at  a  place 
where  he  could  exercise  his  authority,  the  money  should  be 
reclaimed  for  the  Company  to  whom  it  belonged.  The  men 
went  down  below,  and  while  Philip  was  making  arrangements 
with  Amine,  handed  the  casks  of  dollars  out  of  the  hold,  broke 
them  open  and  helped  themselves — quarrelling  with  each 
other  for  the  first  possession,  as  each  cask  was  opened.  At 
last  every  man  had  obtained  as  much  as  he  could  carry,  and 
had  placed  his  spoil  on  the  raft  with  his  baggage,  or  in  the 
boat  to  which  he  had  been  appointed.  All  was  now  ready — 
Amine  was  lowered  down,  and  took  her  station- — the  boats 
took  in  tow  the  raft,  which  was  cast  off  from  the  vessel,  and 
away  they  went  with  the  current,  pulling  with  all  their 
strength,  to  avoid  being  stranded  upon  that  part  of  the 
sandbank  which  appeared  above  water.  This  was  the  great 
danger  which  they  had  to  encounter,  and  which  they  very 
narrowly  escaped. 

They  numbered  eighty-six  souls  in  all  :  in  the  boats  there 
were  thirty-two ;  the  rest  were  on  the  raft,  which  being  well 
built  and  full  of  timber,  floated  high  out  of  the  water,  now  that 
the  sea  was  so  smooth.  It  hud  been  agreed  upon  by  Philip 
and  Krantz  that  one  of  them  should  remain  on  the  raft  and 
the  other  in  one  of  the  boats  ;  but,  at  the  time  the  raft  quitted 
the  ship,  they  were  both  on  the  raft,  as  they  wished  to  consult, 
as  soon  as  they  discovered  the  direction  of  the  current,  which 
would  be  the  most  advisable  course  for  them  to  pursue.  It 
appeared,  that  as  soon  as  the  current  had  passed  the  bank,  it 
took  a  more  southerly  direction  towards  New  Guinea.  It  was 
then  debated  between  them  whether  they  should  or  should  not 
land  on  that  island,  the  natives  of  which  were  known  to  be 
pusillanimous,  yet  treacherous.  A  long  debate  ensued,  which 
ended,  however,  in  their  resolving  not  to  decide  as  yet,  but 
wait  and  see  what  might  occur.  In  the  meantime  the  boats 
pulled  to  the  westward,  while  the  current  set  them  fast  down 
in  a  southerly  direction. 

Night  came  on,  and  the  boats  dropped  the  grapnels  with 
which  they  had  been  provided  ;  and  Philip  was  glad  to  find 
that  the  current  was  not  near  so  strong,  and  the  grapnels 
221 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

held  both  boats  and  raft.  Covering  themselves  up  with  the 
spare  sails  with  which  they  had  provided  themselves,  and 
setting  a  watch,  the  tired  seamen  were  soon  fast  asleep. 

"Had  I  not  better  remain  in  one  of  the  boats?"  observed 
Krantz.  "Suppose,  to  save  themselves,  the  boats  were  to 
leave  the  raft." 

"I  have  thought  of  that,"  replied  Philip,  "and  have  there- 
fore not  allowed  any  provisions  or  water  in  the  boats  ;  they 
will  not  leave  us  for  that  reason." 

"  True,  I  had  forgotten  that." 

Krantz  remained  on  watch,  and  Philip  retired  to  the  repose 
which  he  so  much  needed.  Amine  met  him  with  open  arms. 

"  I  have  no  fear,  Philip,"  said  she  ;  "  I  rather  like  this  wild, 
adventurous  change.  We  will  go  on  shore  and  build  our  hut 
beneath  the  cocoa-trees,  and  I  shall  repine  when  the  day 
comes  which  brings  succour,  and  releases  us  from  our  desert 
isle.  What  do  I  require  but  you  ?" 

"  We  are  in  the  hands  of  One  above,  dear,  who  will  act  with 
us  as  He  pleases.  We  have  to  be  thankful  that  it  is  no  worse," 
replied  Philip.  "  But  now  to  rest,  for  I  shall  soon  be  obliged 
to  watch." 

The  morning  dawned  with  a  smooth  sea  and  a  bright  blue 
sky  ;  the  raft  had  been  borne  to  leeward  of  the  cluster  of  unin- 
habited islands  of  which  we  spoke,  and  was  now  without  hopes 
of  reaching  them;  but  to  the  westward  were  to  be  seen  on  the 
horizon  the  refracted  heads  and  trunks  of  cocoa-nut  trees,  and 
in  that  direction  it  was  resolved  that  they  should  tow  the  raft. 
The  breakfast  had  been  served  out,  and  the  men  had  taken  to 
the  oars,  when  they  discovered  a  proa,  full  of  men,  sweeping 
after  them  from  one  of  the  islands  to  windward.  That  it  was 
a  pirate  vessel  there  could  be  no  doubt;  but  Philip  and  Krantz 
considered  that  their  force  was  more  than  sufficient  to  repel 
them,  should  an  attack  be  made.  This  was  pointed  out  to  the 
men ;  arms  were  distributed  to  all  in  the  boats,  as  well  as  to 
those  on  the  raft  ;  and  that  the  seamen  might  not  be  fatigued, 
they  were  ordered  to  lie  on  their  oars  and  await  the  coming 
up  of  the  vessel. 

As  soon  as  the  pirate  was  within  range,  having  reconnoitred 
her  antagonists,  she  ceased  pulling,  and  commenced  firing  from 
a  small  piece  of  cannon,  which  was  mounted  on  her  bows.  The 
grape  and  langrage  which  she  poured  upon  them  wounded 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP       . 

several  of  the  men,  although  Philip  had  ordered  them  to  lie 
down  flat  on  the  raft  and  in  the  boats.  The  pirate  advanced 
nearer,  and  her  fire  became  more  destructive,  without  any 
opportunity  of  returning  it  by  the  Utrecht  people.  At  last  it 
was  proposed,  as  the  only  chance  of  escape,  that  the  boats 
should  attack  the  pirate.  This  was  agreed  to  by  Philip;  more 
men  were  sent  in  the  boats  ;  Krantz  took  the  command ;  the 
raft  was  cast  off,  and  the  boats  pulled  away.  But  scarcely  had 
they  cleared  the  raft  when,  as  by  one  sudden  thought,  they 
turned  round  and  pulled  away  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Krantz's  voice  was  heard  by  Philip,  and  his  sword  was  seen  lo 
flash  through  the  air;  a  moment  afterwards  he  plunged  into  the 
sea,  and  swam  to  the  raft.  It  appeared  that  the  people  in  the 
boats,  anxious  to  preserve  the  money  which  they  had  possession 
of,  had  agreed  among  themselves  to  pull  away  and  leave  the  raft 
to  its  fate.  The  proposal  for  attacking  the  pirate  had  been 
suggested  with  that  view,  and  as  soon  as  they  were  clear  of  the 
raft  they  put  their  intentions  into  execution.  In  vain  had 
Krantz  expostulated  and  threatened  ;  they  would  have  taken 
his  life ;  and  when  he  found  that  his  efforts  were  of  no  avail 
he  leaped  from  the  boat.  "Then  are  we  lost,  I  fear,"  said 
Philip.  "Our  numbers  are  so  reduced,  that  we  cannot  hope 
to  hold  out  long.  What  think  you,  Schriften?"  ventured 
Philip,  addressing  the  pilot,  who  stood  near  to  him. 

"  Lost — but  not  lost  by  the  pirates — no  harm  there  ! 
He!  he!" 

The  remark  of  Schriften  was  correct.  The  pirates,  imagining 
that  in  taking  to  their  boats  the  people  had  carried  with  them 
everything  that  was  valuable,  instead  of  firing  at  the  raft,  im- 
mediately gave  chase  to  the  boats.  The  sweeps  were  now  out, 
and  the  proa  flew  over  the  smooth  water,  like  a  sea-bird,  past 
the  raft,  and  was  at  first  evidently  gaining  on  the  boats ;  but 
their  speed  soon  slackened,  and  as  the  day  passed,  the  boats 
and  then  the  pirate  vessel  disappeared  in  the  southward  ;  the 
distance  between  them  being  apparently  much  the  same  as  at 
the  commencement  of  the  chase. 

The  raft  being  now  at  the  mercy  of  the  wind  and  waves, 
Philip  and  Krantz  collected  the  carpenter's  tools  which  had 
been  brought  from  the  ship,  and  selecting  two  spars  from  the 
raft,  they  made  every  preparation  for  stepping  a  mast  and 
setting  sail  by  the  next  morning. 
223 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

The  morning  dawned,  and  the  first  objects  that  met  their 
view  were  the  boats  pulling  back  towards  the  raft,  followed 
closely  by  the  pirate.  The  men  had  pulled  the  whole  night, 
and  were  worn  out  with  fatigue.  It  was  presumed  that  a  con- 
sultation had  been  held,  in  which  it  was  agreed  that  they  should 
make  a  sweep,  so  as  to  return  to  the  raft,  as,  if  they  gained  it, 
they  would  be  able  to  defend  themselves,  and  moreover  obtain 
provisions  and  water,  which  they  had  not  on  board  at  the  time 
of  their  desertion.  But  it  was  fated  otherwise  :  gradually  the 
men  dropped  from  their  oars,  exhausted,  into  the  bottom  of  the 
boats,  and  the  pirate  vessel  followed  them  with  renewed  ardour. 
The  boats  were  captured  one  by  one;  the  booty  found  was  more 
than  the  pirates  anticipated,  and  it  hardly  need  be  said  that  not 
one  man  was  spared.  All  this  took  place  within  three  miles  of 
the  raft,  and  Philip  anticipated  that  the  next  movement  of  the 
vessel  would  be  towards  them,  but  he  was  mistaken.  Satisfied 
with  their  booty,  and  imagining  that  there  could  be  no  more 
on  the  raft,  the  pirate  pulled  away  to  the  eastward,  towards  the 
islands  from  amongst  which  she  had  first  made  her  appearance. 
Thus  were  those  who  expected  to  escape,  and  who  had  deserted 
their  companions,  deservedly  punished  ;  whilst  those  who 
anticipated  every  disaster  from  this  desertion  discovered  that 
it  was  the  cause  of  their  being  saved. 

The  remaining  people  on  board  the  raft  amounted  to  about 
forty-five ;  Philip,  Krantz,  Schriften,  Amine,  the  two  mates, 
sixteen  seamen,  and  twenty-four  soldiers,  who  had  been  em- 
barked at  Amsterdam.  Of  provisions  they  had  sufficient  for 
three  or  four  weeks;  but  of  water  they  were  very  short,  already 
not  having  sufficient  for  more  than  three  days  at  the  usual 
allowance.  As  soon  as  the  mast  had  been  stepped  and  rigged, 
and  the  sails  set  (although  there  was  hardly  a  breath  of  wind), 
Philip  explained  to  the  men  the  necessity  of  reducing  the 
quantity  of  water,  and  it  was  agreed  that  it  should  be  served 
out  so  as  to  extend  the  supply  to  twelve  days,  the  allowance 
being  reduced  to  half  a  pint  per  day. 

There  was  a  debate  at  this  time,  as  the  raft  was  in  two  parts, 
whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  cast  off  the  smaller  one,  and 
put  all  the  people  on  board  the  other ;  but  this  proposal  was 
overruled,  as,  in  the  first  place,  although  the  boats  had  deserted 
them,  the  number  on  the  raft  had  not  much  diminished,  and, 
moreover,  the  raft  would  steer  much  better  under  sail,  no\* 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

that  it  had  length,  than  it  would  do  if  they  reduced  its  dimen- 
sions and  altered  its  shape  to  a  square  mass  of  floating  wood. 

For  three  days  it  was  a  calm,  the  sun  poured  down  his  hot 
beams  upon  them,  and  the  want  of  water  was  severely  felt ; 
those  who  continued  to  drink  spirits  suffered  the  most. 

On  the  fourth  day  the  breeze  sprang  up  favourably,  and  the 
sail  was  filled ;  it  was  a  relief  to  their  burning  brows  and 
blistered  backs ;  and  as  the  raft  sailed  on  at  the  rate  of  four 
miles  an  hour,  the  men  were  gay  and  full  of  hope.  The  land 
below  the  cocoa-nut  ti'ees  was  now  distinguishable,  and  they 
anticipated  that  the  next  day  they  could  land  and  procure 
the  water  which  they  now  so  craved  for.  All  night  they 
carried  sail,  but  the  next  morning  they  discovered  that  the 
current  was  strong  against  them,  and  that  what  they  gained 
when  the  breeze  was  fresh,  they  lost  from  the  adverse  current 
as  soon  as  it  went  down ;  the  breeze  was  always  fresh  in  the 
morning,  but  it  fell  calm  in  the  evening.  Thus  did  they  continue 
for  four  days  more,  every  noon  being  not  ten  miles  from  the 
land,  but  the  next  morning  swept  away  to  a  distance,  and 
having  their  ground  to  retrace.  Eight  days  had  now  passed, 
and  the  men,  worn  out  with  the  exposure  to  the  burning  sun, 
became  discontented  and  mutinous.  At  one  time  they  insisted 
that  the  raft  should  be  divided,  that  they  might  gain  the  land 
with  the  other  half;  at  another  that  the  provisions  which  they 
could  no  longer  eat  should  be  thrown  overboard  to  lighten  the 
raft.  The  difficulty  under  which  they  lay  was  the  having  no 
anchor  or  grapnel  to  the  raft,  the  boats  having  carried  away 
with  them  all  that  had  been  taken  from  the  ship.  Philip  then 
proposed  to  the  men  that,  as  every  one  of  them  had  such  a 
quantity  of  dollars,  the  money  should  be  sewed  up  in  canvas 
bags,  each  man's  property  separate  ;  and  that  with  this  weight 
to  the  ropes  they  would  probably  be  enabled  to  hold  the  raft 
against  the  current  for  one  night,  when  they  would  be  able 
the  next  day  to  gain  the  shore ;  but  this  was  refused — they 
would  not  risk  their  money.  No,  no — fools  !  they  would 
sooner  part  with  their  lives  by  the  most  miserable  of  all 
deaths.  Again  and  again  was  this  proposed  to  them  by 
Philip  and  Krantz,  but  without  success. 

In  the  meantime,  Amine  had  kept  up  her  courage  and  her 
spirits,  proving  to  Philip  a  valuable  adviser  and  a  comforter 
in  his  misfortunes.    "  Cheer  up,  Philip,"  would  she  say ;  "  we 
225  p 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

shall  yet  build  our  cottage  under  the  shade  of  those  cocoa-nut 
trees,  and  pass  a  portion,  if  not  the  remainder,  of  our  lives  in 
peace  ;  for  who  indeed  is  there  who  would  think  to  find  us  in 
these  desolate  and  untrodden  regions  ?  " 

Schriften  was  quiet  and  well  behaved  ;  talked  much  with 
Amine,  but  with  nobody  else.  Indeed,  he  appeared  to  have  a 
stronger  feeling  in  favour  of  Amine  than  he  had  ever  shown 
before.  He  watched  over  her  and  attended  her  ;  and  Amine 
would  often  look  up  after  being  silent,  and  perceive  Schriften's 
face  wear  an  air  of  pity  and  melancholy  which  she  had  believed 
it  impossible  that  he  could  have  exhibited. 

Another  day  passed;  again  they  neared  the  land,  and  again 
did  the  breeze  die  away,  and  they  were  swept  back  by  the 
current.  The  men  now  arose,  and  in  spite  of  the  endeavours  of 
Philip  and  Krantz,  they  rolled  into  the  sea  all  the  provisions 
and  stores,  everything  but  one  cask  of  spirits  and  the  re- 
maining stock  of  water;  they  then  sat  down  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  raft  with  gloomv,  threatening  looks,  and  in  close 
consultation. 

Another  night  closed  in ;  Philip  was  full  of  anxiety.  Again 
he  urged  them  to  anchor  with  their  money,  but  in  vain  ;  they 
ordered  him  away,  and  he  returned  to  the  after-part  of  the  raft, 
upon  which  A  mine's  secure  retreat  had  been  erected ;  he  leaned 
on  it  in  deep  thought  and  melancholy,  for  he  imagined  that 
Amine  was  asleep. 

"  What  disturbs  you,  Philip  ?  " 

"  What  disturbs  me  ?  The  avarice  and  folly  of  these  men. 
They  will  die  rather  than  risk  their  hateful  money.  They 
have  the  means  of  saving  themselves  and  us,  and  they  will  not. 
There  is  weight  enough  in  bullion  on  the  fore  part  of  the  raft 
to  hold  a  dozen  floating  masses  such  as  this,  yet  they  will  not 
risk  it.  Cursed  love  of  gold,  it  makes  men  fools,  madmen, 
villains !  We  have  now  but  two  days'  water — doled  out  as 
itis  drop  by  drop.  Look  at  their  emaciated,  broken-down, 
wasted  forms,  and  yet  see  how  they  cling  to  money,  which 
probably  they  will  never  have  occasion  for,  even  if  they  gain 
the  land.  I  am  distracted  ! " 

"You  suffer,  Philip,  you  suffer  from  privation;  but  I  have 
been  careful ;  I  thought  that  this  would  come  ;  I  have  saved 
both  water  and  biscuit— I  have  here  four  bottles— drink,  Philip, 
and  it  will  relieve  you." 

226 


THE  PHAN7TOM   SHIP 

Philip  drank  ;  it  did  relieve  him,  for  the  excitement  of  the 
day  haJ  pressed  heavily  on  him. 

"  Thanks,  Amine — thanks,  dearest ;  I  feel  better  now. — 
Good  Heaven !  are  they  such  fools  as  to  value  the  dross  of 
metal  above  one  drop  of  water  in  a  time  of  suffering  and  priva- 
tion such  as  this  ?  " 

The  night  closed  in  as  before  ;  the  stars  shone  bright,  but 
there  was  no  moon.  Philip  had  risen  at  midnight  to  relieve 
Krantz  from  the  steerage  of  the  raft;  Usually  the  men  had 
lain  about  in  every  part  of  the  raft,  but  this  night  the  majority 
of  them  remained  forward.  Philip  was  communing  with  his 
own  bitter  thoughts,  when  he  heard  a  scuffle  forward,  and  the 
voice  of  Krantz  crying  out  to  him  for  help.  He  quitted  the 
helm,  and  seizing  his  cutlass,  ran  forward,  where  he  found 
Krantz  down,  and  the  men  securing  him.  He  fought  his  way 
to  him,  but  was  himself  seized  and  disarmed.  "  Cut  away — 
cut  away ! "  was  called  out  by  those  who  held  him  ;  and  in  a 
few  seconds  Philip  had  the  misery  to  behold  the  after-part  of 
the  raft,  with  Amine  upon  it,  drifted  apart  from  the  one  011 
which  he  stood. 

"  For  mercy's  sake  !  my  wife — my  Amine — for  Heaven's 
sake,  save  her ! "  cried  Philip,  struggling  in  vain  to  disengage 
himself.  Amine  also,  who  had  run  to  the  side  of  the  raft,  held 
out  her  arms — it  was  in  vain — they  were  separated  more  than 
a  cable's  length.  Philip  made  one  more  desperate  struggle, 
and  then  fell  down  deprived  of  sense  and  motion. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

IT  was  not  until  the  day  had  dawned  that  Philip  opened  his 
eyes  and  discovered  Krantz  kneeling  at  his  side ;  at  first  his 
thoughts  were  scattered  and  confused  ;  he  felt  that  some 
dreadful  calamity  had  happened  to  him,  but  he  could  not 
recall  to  mind  what  it  was.  At  last  it  rushed  upon  him,  and 
he  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"Take  comfort,"  said  Krantz;  "we  shall  probably  gain 
the  shore  to-day,  and  we  will  go  in  search  of  her  as  soon  as 
we  can." 

"This,  then,  is  the  separation  and  the  cruel  death  to  he* 
227 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

which  that  wretch  Schriften  prophesied  to  us,"  thought  Philip; 
"cruel,  indeed,  to  waste  away  to  a  skeleton,  under  a  burning 
sun,  without  one  drop  of  water  left  to  cool  her  parched  tongue; 
at  the  mercy  of  the  winds  and  waves  ;  drifting  about — alone — 
all  alone — separated  from  her  husband,  in  whose  arms  she- 
would  have  died  without  regret ;  maddened  with  suspense  and 
with  the  thoughts  of  what  I  may  be  suffering,  or  what  may 
have  been  my  fate.  Pilot,  you  are  right ;  there  can  be  no  more 
cruel  death  to  a  fond  and  doting  wife.  Oh  !  my  head  reels  ! 
What  has  Philip  Vanderdecken  to  live  for  now  ?  " 

Krantz  offered  such  consolation  as  his  friendship  could 
suggest,  but  in  vain.  He  then  talked  of  revenge,  and  Philip 
raised  his  head.  '  After  a  few  minutes'  thought,  he  rose  up. 
"  Yes,"  replied  he,  "  revenge  ! — revenge  upon  those  dastards 
and  traitors  !  Tell  me,  Krantz,  how  many  can  we  trust  ?  " 

"Half  of  the  men,  I  should  think,  at  least.  It  was  a 
surprise." 

A  spar  had  been  fitted  as  a  rudder,  and  the  raft  had  now 
gained  nearer  the  shore  than  it  ever  had  done  before.  The 
men  were  in  high  spirits  at  the  prospect,  and  every  man  was 
sitting  on  his  own  store  of  dollars,  which,  in  their  eyes,  in- 
creased in  value  in  proportion  as  did  their  prospect  of  escape. 

Philip  discovered  from  Krantz  that  it  was  the  soldiers  and 
the  most  indifferent  seamen  who  had  mutinied  on  the  night 
before,  and  cut  away  the  other  raft ;  and  that  all  the  best  men 
had  remained  neuter. 

"  And  so  they  will  be  now,  I  imagine,"  continued  Krantz ; 
"  the  prospect  of  gaining  the  shore  has,  in  a  manner,  reconciled 
them  to  the  treachery  of  their  companions." 

"Probably,"  replied  Philip,  with  a  bitter  laugh;  "but  I 
know  what  will  rouse  them.  Send  them  here  to  me." 

Philip  talked  to  the. seamen  whom  Krantz  had  sent  over  to 
him.  He  pointed  out  to  them  that  the  other  men  were  traitors 
not  to  be  reliad  upon  ;  that  they  would  sacrifice  everything 
and  everybody  for  their  own  gain  ;  that  they  had  already  done 
so  for  money,  and  that  they  themselves  would  have  no  security, 
either  on  the  raft  or  on  shore,  with  such  people ;  that  they 
dare  not  sleep  for  fear  of  having  their  throats  cut,  and  that  it 
were  better  at  once  to  get  rid  of  those  who  could  not  be  true 
to  each  other ;  that  it  would  facilitate  their  escape,  and  that 
tliey  could  divide  between  themselves  the  money  which  thQ 
228 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

others  had  secured,  and  by  which  they  would  double  theif 
own  shares.  That  it  had  been  his  intention,  although  he  had 
said  nothing,  to  enforce  the  restoration  of  the  money  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Company,  as  sooit  as  they  had  gained  a  civilised 
port,  where  the  authorities  could  interfere  ;  but  that,  if  they 
consented  to  join  and  aid  him,  he  would  now  give  them  the 
whole  of  it  for  their  own  use. 

What  will  not  the  desire  of  gain  effect  ?  Is  it,  therefore,  to 
be  wondered  at,  that  these  men,  who  were  indeed  but  little 
better  than  those  who  were  thus,  in  his  desire  of  retaliation, 
denounced  by  Philip,  consented  to  his  proposal  ?  It  was 
agreed  that  if  they  did  not  gain  the  shore  the  others  should 
be  attacked  that  very  night,  and  tossed  into  the  sea. 

But  the  consultation  with  Philip  had  put  the  other  party  on 
the  alert ;  they,  too,  held  counsel,  and  kept  their  arms  by  their 
sides.  As  the  breeze  died  away,  they  were  not  two  miles  from 
the  land,  and  once  more  they  drifted  back  into  the  ocean. 
Philip's  mind  was  borne  down  with  grief  at  the  loss  of  Amine  ; 
but  it  recovered  to  a  certain  degree  when  he  thought  of 
revenge  :  that  feeling  stayed  him  up,  and  he  often  felt  the  edge 
of  his  cutlass,  impatient  for  the  moment  of  retribution. 

It  was  a  lovely  night ;  the  sea  was  now  smooth  as  glass,  and 
not  a  breath  of  air  moved  in  the  heavens ;  the  sail  of  the  raft 
hung  listless  down  the  mast,  and  was  reflected  upon  the  calm 
surface  by  the  brilliancy  of  the  starry  night  alone.  It  was 
a  night,  for  contemplation — for  examination  of  one's  self,  and 
adoration  of  the  Deity  ;  and  here,  on  a  frail  raft,  were  huddled 
together  more  than  forty  beings,  ready  for  combat,  for  murder, 
and  for  spoil.  Each  party  pretended  to  repose  ;  yet  each  were 
quietly  watching  the  motions  of  the  other,  with  their  hands 
upon  their  weapons.  The  signal  was  to  be  given  by  Philip ; 
it  was,  to  let  go  the  halyards  of  the  yard,  so  that  the  sail  should 
fall  down  upon  a  portion  of  the  other  party,  and  entangle 
them.  By  Philip's  directions,  Schriften  had  taken  the  helm 
and  Krantz  remained  by  his  side. 

The  yard  and  sail  fell  clattering  down,  and  then  the  work  of 
death  commenced ;  there  was  no  parley,  no  suspense ;  each 
man  started  upon  his  feet  and  raised  his  sword.  The  voices  of 
Philip  and  of  Krantz  alone  were  heard,  and  Philip's  sword  did 
its  work.  He  was  nerved  to  his  revenge,  and  never  could  be 
satiated  as  long  as  one  remained  who  had  sacrificed  his  AminQ. 
229 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

As  Philip  had  expected,  many  had  been  covered  up  and  en- 
tangled by  the  falling  of  the  sail,  and  their  work  was  thereby 
made  easier. 

Some  fell  where  they  stood  :  others  reeled  back,  and  sank 
down  under  the  smooth  water ;  others  were  pierced  as  they 
floundered  under  the  canvas.  In  a  few  minutes  the  work 
of  carnage  was  complete.  Schriften  meanwhile  looked  on, 
and  ever  and  anon  gave  vent  to  his  chuckling  laugh  —  his 
demoniacal  "  He  !  he  ! " 

The  strife  was  over,  and  Philip  stood  against  the  mast  to 
recover  his  breath.  "So  far  art  thou  avenged,  my  Amine," 
thought  he  ;  "  but  oh  !  what  are  these  paltry  lives  compared 
to  thine?"  And  now  that  his  revenge  was  satiated,  and  he 
could  do  no  more,  he  covered  his  face  up  in  his  hands,  and 
wept  bitterly,  while  those  who  had  assisted  him  were  already 
collecting  the  money  of  the  slain  for  distribution.  These  men, 
when  they  found  that  three  only  of  their  side  had  fallen, 
lamented  that  there  had  not  been  more,  as  their  own  shares 
of  the  dollars  had  been  increased. 

There  were  now  but  thirteen  men,  besides  Philip,  Krantz, 
and  Schriften,  left  upon  the  raft.  As  the  day  dawned  the 
breeze  again  sprang  up  and  they  shared  out  the  portions  of 
water,  which  would  have  been  the  allowance  of  their  com- 
panions who  had  fallen.  Hunger  they  felt  not,  but  the  water 
revived  their  spirits. 

Although  Philip  had  had  little  to  say  to  Schriften  since  the 
separation  from  Amine,  it  was  very  evident  to  him  and  to 
Krantz  that  all  the  pilot's  former  bitter  feelings  had  returned. 
His  chuckle,  his  sarcasms,  his  "He!  he!"  were  incessant; 
and  his  eye  was  now  as  maliciously  directed  to  Philip  as  it  was 
when  they  first  met.  It  was  evident  that  Amine  alone  had 
for  the  time  conquered  his  disposition  ;  and  that  with  her 
disappearance  had  vanished  all  the  goodwill  of  Schriften 
towards  her  husband.  For  this  Philip  cared  little ;  he  had  a 
much  more  serious  weight  on  his  heart — the  loss  of  his  dear 
Amine  ;  and  he  felt  reckless  and  indifferent  concerning  any- 
thing else. 

The  breeze  now  freshened,  and  they  expected  that  in  two 
hours  they  would  run  on  the  beach,  but  they  were  disap- 
pointed ;  the  step  of  the  mast  gave  way  from  the  force  of  the 
wind,  and  the  sail  fell  upon  the  raft.  This  occasioned  great 
230 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

delay ;  and  before  they  could  repair  the  mischief,  the  wind 
again  subsided,  and  they  were  left  about  a  mile  from  the  beach. 
Tired  and  worn  out  with  his  feelings,  Philip  at  last  fell  asleep 
by  the  side  of  Krantz,  leaving  Schriften  at  the  helm.  He  slept 
soundly — he  dreamt  of  Amine — he  thought  she  was  under  a 
grove  of  cocoa-nuts,  in  a  sweet  sleep ;  that  he  stood  by  and 
watched  her,  and  that  she  smiled  in  her  sleep,  and  murmured 
"  Philip,"  when  suddenly  he  was  awakened  by  some  unusual 
movement.  Half  dreaming  still,  he  thought  that  Schriften,  the 
pilot,  had  in  his  sleep  been  attempting  to  gain  his  relic,  had 
passed  the  chain  over  his  head,  and  was  removing  quietly  from 
underneath  his  neck  the  portion  of  the  chain  which,  in  his 
reclining  posture,  he  lay  upon.  Startled  at  the  idea,  he  threw 
up  his  hand  to  seize  the  arm  of  the  wretch,  and  found  that  he 
had  really  seized  hold  of  Schriften,  who  was  kneeling  by  him, 
and  in  possession  of  the  chain  and  relic.  The  struggle  was 
short,  the  relic  was  recovered,  and  the  pilot  lay  at  the  mercy 
of  Philip,  who  held  him  down  with  his  knee  on  his  chest. 
Philip  replaced  the  relic  on  his  bosom,  and,  excited  to  madness, 
rose  from  the  body  of  the  now  breathless  Schriften,  caught  it 
in  his  arms,  and  hurled  it  into  the  sea. 

"  Man  or  devil !  I  care  not  which,"  exclaimed  Philip, 
breathless ;  "  escape  now,  if  you  can  ! " 

The  struggle  had  already  roused  up  Krantz  and  others,  but 
not  in  time  to  prevent  Philip  from  wreaking  his  vengeance 
upon  Schriften.  In  a  few  words,  he  told  Krantz  what  had 
passed  ;  as  for  the  men,  they  cared  not ;  they  laid  their  heads 
down  again,  and,  satisfied  that  their  money  was  safe,  inquired 
no  further. 

Philip  watched  to  see  if  Schriften  would  rise  up  again,  and 
try  to  regain  the  raft ;  but  he  did  not  make  his  appearance 
above  water,  and  Philip  felt  satisfied. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

WHAT  pen  could  portray  the  feelings  of  the  fond  and 
doting  Amine,  when  she  first  discovered  that  she  was  separ- 
ated from  her  husband  ?  In  a  state  of  bewilderment,  she 
Watched  the  other  raft  as  the  distance  between  them  m- 
231 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

creased.     At  last  the  shades  of  night  hid  it  from  her  aching 
eyes,  and  she  dropped  down  in  mute  despair. 

Gradually  she  recovered  herself,  and  turning  round,  she 
exclaimed,  "  Who's  here  ?" 

No  answer. 

"Who's  here?"  cried  she  in  a  louder  voice;  "alone- 
alone — and  Philip  gone !  Mother,  mother,  look  down  upon 
your  unhappy  child  ! "  and  Amine  frantically  threw  herself 
down  so  near  to  the  edge  of  the  raft,  that  her  long  hair, 
which  had  fallen  down,  floated  on  the  wave. 

"  Ah  me  !  where  am  I  ?  "  cried  Amine,  after  remaining  in  a 
state  of  torpor  for  some  hours.  The  sun  glared  fiercely  upon 
her,  and  dazzled  her  eyes  as  she  opened  them — she  cast  them 
on  the  blue  wave  close  by  her,  and  beheld  a  large  shark 
motionless  by  the  side  of  the  raft,  waiting  for  his  prey. 
Recoiling  from  the  edge,  she  started  up.  She  turned  round, 
and  beheld  the  raft  vacant,  and  the  truth  flashed  on  her. 
"  Oh  !  Philip,  Philip ! "  cried  she,  "  then  it  is  true,  and  you 
are  gone  for  ever !  I  thought  it  was  only  a  dream  :  I  recollect 
all  now.  Yes — all — all !  "  And  Amine  sank  down  again  upon 
her  cot,  which  had  been  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  raft,  and 
remained  motionless  for  some  time. 

But  the  demand  for  water  became  imperious ;  she  seized 
one  of  the  bottles,  and  drank.  "  Yet  why  should  I  drink  or 
eat?  Why  should  I  wish  to  preserve  life?"  She-  rose,  and 
looked  round  the  horizon.  "  Sky  and  water,  nothing  more. 
Is  this  the  death  I  am  to  die — the  cruel  death  prophesied  by 
Schriften  —a  lingering  death  under  a  burning  sun,  while  my 
vitals  are  parched  within  ?  Be  it  so !  Fate,  I  dare  thee 
to  thy  worst — we  can  die  but  once — and  without  him,  what 
care  I  to  live  ?  But  yet  I  may  see  him  again,"  continued 
Amine,  hurriedly  after  a  pause.  "  Yes,  I  may— who  knows  ? 
Then  welcome  life;  I'll  nurse  thee  for  that  bare  hope — bare 
indeed,  with  naught  to  feed  on.  Let  me  see — is  it  here 
still?"  Amine  looked  at  her  zone,  and  perceived  her 
dagger  was  still  in  it.  "  Well,  then,  I  will  live  since  death 
is  at  my  command,  and  be  guard  ful  of  life  for  my  dear 
husband's  sake."  And  Amine  threw  herself  on  her  rest- 
ing-place that  she  might  forget  everything.  She  did  :  from 
that  morning  till  the  noon  of  the  next  day  she  remained  in 
a  state  of  torpor. 

232 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

When  she  again  rose,  she  was  faint ;  again  she  looked 
round  her — there  was  but  sky  and  water  to  be  seen. 

"  Oh,  this  solitude  ! — it  is  horrible !  death  would  be  a 
release — but  no,  I  must  not  die — I  must  live  for  Philip." 
She  refreshed  herself  with  water  and  a  few  pieces  of  biscuit, 
and  folded  her  arms  across  her  breast.  "  A  few  more  days 
without  relief,  and  all  must  be  over.  Was  ever  woman 
situated  as  I  am,  and  yet  I  dare  to  indulge  hope  ?  Why,  'tis 
madness  !  And  why  am  I  thus  singled  out :  because  I  have 
wedded  with  Philip  ?  It  may  be  so  ;  if  so,  I  welcome  it. 
Wretches  !  who  thus  severed  me  from  my  husband ;  who,  to 
save  their  own  lives,  sacrificed  a  helpless  woman  !  Nay, 
they  might  have  saved  me',  if  they  had  had  the  least  pity  ; — 
but  no,  they  never  felt  it.  And  these  are  Christians !  The 
creed  that  the  old  priests  would  have  had  me — yes,  that 
Philip  would  have  had  me  embrace.  Charity  and  goodwill ! 
They  talk  of  it,  but  I  have  never  seen  them  practise  it ! 
Loving  one  another  ! — forgiving  one  another  ! — say  rather 
hating  and  preying  upon  one  another  !  A  creed  never  prac- 
tised :  why,  if  not  practised,  of  what  value  is  it  ?  Any  creed 
were  better — I  abjure  it,  and  if  I  be  saved,  will  abjure  it  still 
for  ever.  Shade  of  my  mother !  is  it  that  I  have  listened  to 
these  men — that  I  have,  to  win  my  husband's  love,  tried  to 
forget  that  which  thou  taughtest,  even  when  a  child  at  thy 
feet — that  faith  which  our  forefathers  for  thousands  of  years 
lived  and  died  in — that  creed  proved  by  works,  and  obedience 
to  the  prophet's  will — is  it  for  this  that  I  am  punished  ?  Tell 
me,  mother — oh  !  tell  me  in  my  dreams." 

The  night  closed  in,  and  with  the  gloom  rose  heavy  clouds  ; 
the  lightning  darted  through  the  firmament,  ever  and  anon 
lighting  up  tlie  raft  At  last,  the  flashes  were  so  rapid,  not 
following  each  other,  but  darting  down  from  every  quarter  at 
once,  that  the  whole  firmament  appeared  as  if  on  fire,  and  the 
thunder  rolled  along  the  heavens,  now  near  and  loud,  then 
rumbling  in  the  distance.  The  breeze  rose  up  fresh,  and  the 
waves  tossed  the  raft,  and  washed  occasionally  even  to  Amine's 
feet,  as  she  stood  in  the  centre  of  it. 

"  I  like  this — this  is  far  better  than  that  calm  and  withering 

heat — this  rouses  me,"  said  Amine,  as  she  cast  her  eyes  up, 

and    watched    the    forked    lightning   till   her  vision   became 

obscured.     "  Yes,  this  is  as  it  should  be.     Lightning,  strike 

233 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

me  if  you  please — waves,  wash  me  off  and  bury  me  in  a 
briny  tomb — pour  the  wrath  of  the  whole  elements  upon  this 
devoted  head — I  care  not,  I  laugh  at,  I  defy  it  all.  Thou 
canst  but  kill ;  this  little  steel  can  do  as  much.  Let  those 
who  hoard  up  wealth — those  who  live  in  splendotiii — those 
that  are  happy — those  who  have  husbands,  children,  aught 
to  love — let  them  tremble ;  I  have  nothing.  Elements !  be 
ye  fire,  or  water,  or  earth,  or  air,  Amine  defies  you  !  And 
yet — no,  no,  deceive  not  thyself.  Amine,  there  is  no  hope  ; 
thus  will  I  mount  my  funeral  bier,  and  wait  the  will  of 
destiny."  And  Amine  regained  the  secure  place  which 
Philip  had  fitted  up  for  her  in  the  centre  of  the  raft,  threw 
herself  down  upon  her  bed,  and  shut  her  eyes. 

The  thunder  and  lightning  was  followed  up  by  torrents  of 
heavy  rain,  which  fell  till  daylight ;  the  wind  still  continued 
fresh,  but  the  sky  cleared,  and  the  sun  shone  out.  Amine 
remained  shivering  in  her  wet  garments:  the  heat  of  the 
sun  proved  too  powerful  for  her  exhausted  state,  and  her 
brain  wandered.  She  rose  up  in  a  sitting  posture,  looked 
around  her,  saw  verdant  fields  in  every  direction,  the  cocoa- 
nuts  waving  to  the  wind — imagined  even  that  she  saw  her 
own  Philip  in  the  distance  hastening  to  her ;  «he  held  out 
her  arms ;  strove  to  get  up,  and  run  to  meet  him,  but  her 
limbs  refused  their  office ;  she  called  to  him,  she  screamed, 
and  sank  back  exhausted  on  her  resting-place. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

VV  E  must  for  a  time  return  to  Philip,  and  follow  his  strange 
destiny.  A  few  hours  after  he  had  thrown  the  pilot  into  the 
sea,  they  gained  the  shore,  so  long  looked  at  with  anxiety  and 
suspense.  The  spars  of  the  raft,  jerked  by  the  running  swell, 
undulated  and  rubbed  against  each  other  as  they  rose  and  fell 
to  the  waves  breaking  on  the  beach.  The  breeze  was  fresh, 
but  the  surf  was  trifling,  and  the  landing  was  without  diffi- 
culty. The  beach  was  shelving,  of  firm  white  sand,  inter- 
cpersed  and  strewed  with  various  brilliant-coloured  shells ; 
and  here  and  there  the  bleached  fragments  and  bones  of 
some  animal  which  had  been  forced  out  of  its  element  to 
234, 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

die.  The  island  was,  like  all  the  others,  covered  with  a 
thick  wood  of  cocoa-nut  trees,  whose  tops  waved  to  the 
breeze,  or  bowed  to  the  blast,  producing  a  shade  and  a 
freshness  which  would  have  been  duly  appreciated  by  any 
other  party  than  the  present,  with  the  exception  ouly  of 
Krantz ;  for  Philip  thought  of  nothing  but  his  lost  wife,  and 
the  seamen  thought  of  nothing  but  their  sudden  wealth. 
Krantz  supported  Philip  to  the  beach,  and  led  him  to  the 
shade ;  but  after  a  minute  he  rose,  and  running  down  to 
the  nearest  point,  looked  anxiously  for  the  portion  of  the 
raft  which  held  Amine,  which  was  now  far,  far  away.  Krantz 
had  followed,  aware  that,  now  the  first  paroxysms  were  past, 
there  was  no  fear  of  Philip's  throwing  away  his  life. 

"  Gone,  gone  for  ever ! "  exclaimed  Philip,  pressing  his 
hands  to  the  balls  of  his  eyes. 

"  Not  so,  Philip  ;  the  same  Providence  which  has  preserved 
us  will  certainly  assist  her.  It  is  impossible  that  she  can 
perish  among  so  many  islands,  many  of  which  are  inhabited ; 
and  a  woman  will  be  certain  of  kind  treatment.  ' 

"  If  I  could  only  think  so,"  replied  Philip. 

"  A  little  reflection  may  induce  you  to  think  that  it  is  rather 
an  advantage  than  otherwise  that  she  is  thus  separated — not 
from  you,  but  from  so  many  lawless  companions  whose  united 
force  we  could  not  resist.  Do  you  think  that,  after  any 
lengthened  sojourn  on  this  island,  these  people  with  us  would 
permit  you  to  remain  in  quiet  possession  of  your  wife  ?  No  ! 
— they  would  respect  no  laws  ;  and  Amine  has,  in  my  opinion, 
been  miraculously  preserved  from  shame  and  ill-treatment,  if 
not  from  death." 

"  They  durst  not,  surely  !  Well,  but,  Krantz,  we  must  make 
a  raft  and  follow  her;  we  must  not  remain  here— I  will  seek 
her  through  the  wide  world." 

"Be  it  so,  if  you  wish,  Philip,  and  I  will  follow  your 
fortunes,"  replied  Krantz,  glad  to  find  that  there  was  some- 
thing, however  wild  the  idea,  for  his  mind  to  feed  on.  "  But 
now  let  us  return  to  the  raft,  seek  the  refreshment  we  so  much 
require,  and  after  that  we  will  consider  what  may  be  the  best 
plan  to  pursue." 

To  this  Philip,  who  was  much  exhausted,  tacitly  consented, 
and  he  followed  Krantz  to  where  the  raft  had  been  beached. 
The  men  had  left  it,  and  were  each  of  them  sitting  apart  from 
235 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

one  another  under  the  shade  of  his  own  chosen  cocoa-nut  tree. 
The  articles  which  had  been  saved  on  the  raft  had  not  been 
landed,  and  Krantz  called  upon  them  to  come  and  carry  the 
things  on  shore — but  no  one  would  answer  to  obey.  They  each 
sat  watching  their  money,  and  afraid  to  leave  it,  lest  they 
should  be  dispossessed  of  it  by  the  others.  Now  that  their 
lives  were,  comparatively  speaking,  safe,  the  demon  of  avarice 
had  taken  full  possession  of  their  souls ;  there  they  sat,  ex- 
hausted, pining  for  water,  and  longing  for  sleep,  and  yet  they 
dared  not  move, — they  were  fixed  as  if  by  the  wand  of  the 
enchanter. 

"  It  is  the  cursed  dollars  which  have  turned  their  brains," 
observed  Krantz  to  Philip ;  "  let  us  try  if  we  cannot  manage 
to  remove  what  we  most  stand  in  need  of,  and  then  we  will 
search  for  water." 

Philip  and  Krantz  collected  the  carpenter's  tools,  the  best 
arms,  and  all  the  ammunition,  as  the  possession  of  the  latter 
would  give  them  an  advantage  in  case  of  necessity  ;  they  then 
dragged  on  shore  the  sail  and  some  small  spars,  all  of  which 
they  carried  up  to  a  clump  of  cocoa-nut  trees,  about  a  hundred 
yards  from  the  beach. 

In  half-an-hour  they  had  erected  an  humble  tent,  and  put 
into  it  what  they  had  brought  with  them,  with  the  exception 
of  the  major  part  of  the  ammunition,  which,  as  soon  as  he  was 
screened  by  the  tent,  Krantz  buried  in  a  heap  of  dry  sand 
behind  it ;  he  then,  for  their  immediate  wants,  cut  down  with 
an  axe  a  small  cocoa-nut  tree  in  full  bearing.  It  must  be  for 
those  who  have  suffered  the  agony  of  prolonged  thirst,  to  know 
the  extreme  pleasure  with  which  the  milk  of  the  nuts  was  one 
after  the  other  poured  down  the  parched  throats  of  Krantz  and 
Philip.  The  men  witnessed  their  enjoyment  in  silence,  and 
with  gloating  eyes.  Every  time  that  a  fresh  cocoa-nut  was 
seized  and  its  contents  quaffed  by  their  officers,  more  sharp 
and  agonising  was  their  own  devouring  thirst — still  closer  did 
their  dry  lips  glue  themselves  together — yet  they  moved  not, 
although  they  felt  the  tortures  of  the  condemned. 

Evening  closed  in;  Philip  had  thrown  himself  down  on  the 
spare  sails,  and  had  fallen  asleep,  when  Krantz  set  off  to 
explore  the  island  upon  which  they  had  been  thrown.  It 
was  small,  not  exceeding  three  miles  in  length,  and  at  no  one 
part  more  than  five  hundred  yards  across.  Water  there  was 
£36 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

none,  unless  it  were  to  be  obtained  by  digging;  fortunately,  the 
young  cocoa-nuts  prevented  the  absolute  necessity  for  it.  On 
his  return,  Krantz  passed  the  men  in  their  respective  stations. 
Each  was  awake,  and  raised  himself  on  his  elbow  to  ascertain 
if  it  were  an  assailant ;  but,  perceiving  Krantz,  they  again 
dropped  down.  Krantz  passed  the  raft — the  water  was  now 
quite  smooth,  for  the  wind  had  shifted  off  shore,  and  the  spars 
which  com  posed  the  raft  hardly  jostled  each  other.  He  stepped 
upon  it,  and,  as  the  moon  was  bright  in  the  heavens,  he  took 
the  precaution  of  collecting  all  the  arms  which  had  been  left, 
and  throwing  them  as  far  as  he  could  into  the  sea.  He  then 
walked  to  the  tent,  where  he  found  Philip  still  sleeping 
soundly,  and  in  a  few  minutes  he  was  reposing  by  his  side. 
And  Philip's  dreams  were  of  Amine  ;  he  thought  that  he  saw 
the  hated  Schriften  rise  again  from  the  waters,  and,  climbing 
up  to  the  raft,  seat  himself  by  her  side.  He  thought  that  he 
again  heard  his  unearthly  chuckle  and  his  scornful  laugh,  as  his 
unwelcome  words  fell  upon  her  distracted  ears.  He  thought 
that  she  fled  into  the  sea  to  avoid  Schriften,  and  that  the 
waters  appeared  to  reject  her — she  floated  on  the  surface. 
The  storm  rose,  and  once  more  he  beheld  her  in  the  sea-shell 
skimming  over  the  waves.  Again,  she  was  in  a  furious  surf 
on  the  beach,  and  her  shell  sank,  and  she  was  buried  in  the 
waves  ;  and  then  he  saw  her  walking  on  shore  without  fear 
and  without  harm,  for  the  water  which  spared  no  one  appeared 
to  spare  her.  Philip  tried  to  join  her,  but  was  prevented 
by  some  unknown  power,  and  Amine  waved  her  hand  and 
said,  "  We  shall  meet  again,  Philip  ;  yes,  once  more  on  this 
earth  shall  we  meet  again." 

The  sun  was  high  in  the  heavens  and  scorching  in  his 
heat,  when  Krantz  first  opened  his  eyes,  and  awakened 
Philip.  The  axe  again  procured  for  them  their  morning's 
meal.  Philip  was  silent ;  he  was  ruminating  upon  his  dreams, 
which  had  afforded  him  consolation.  "  We  shall  meet  again!" 
thought  he.  "  Yes,  once  more  at  least  we  shall  meet  again. 
Providence  !  I  thank  Thee." 

Krantz  then  stepped  out  to  ascertain  the  condition  of  the 
i*ien.  He  found  them  faint,  and  so  exhausted  that  they 
could  not  possibly  survive  much  longer,  yet  still  watching 
over  their  darling  treasure.  It  was  melancholy  to  witness 
Such  perversion  of  intellect,  and  Krantz  thought  of  a  plan 
237 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

which  might  save  their  lives.  He  proposed  to  each  of  them 
separately  that  they  should  bury  their  money  so  deep  that  it 
was  not  to  be  recovered  without  time ;  this  would  prevent 
any  one  from  attacking  the  treasure  of  the  other,  without  its 
being  perceived  and  the  attempt  frustrated,  and  would  enable 
them  to  obtain  their  necessary  food  and  refreshment  without 
danger  of  being  robbed. 

To  this  plan  they  acceded.  Krantz  brought  out  of  the  tent 
the  only  shovel  in  their  possession,  and  they,  one  by  one, 
buried  their  dollars  many  feet  deep  in  the  yielding  sand. 
When  they  had  all  secured  their  wealth,  he  brought  them 
one  of  the  axes,  and  the  cocoa-nut  trees  fell,  and  they  were 
restored  to  new  life  and  vigour.  Having  satiated  themselves, 
they  then  lay  down  upon  the  several  spots  under  which  they 
had  buried  their  dollars,  and  were  soon  enjoying  that  repose 
which  they  all  so  much  needed. 

Philip  and  Krantz  had  now  many  serious  consultations  as  to 
the  means  which  should  be  taken  for  quitting  the  island,  and 
going  in  search  of  Amine ;  for  although  Krantz  thought  the 
latter  part  of  Philip's  proposal  useless,  he  did  not  venture  to 
say  so.  To  quit  this  island  was  necessary  ;  and  provided  they 
gained  one  of  those  which  were  inhabited,  it  was  all  that  they 
could  expect.  As  for  Amine,  he  considered  that  she  was  dead 
before  this,  either  having  been  washed  off  the  raft,  or  that  her 
body  was  lying  on  it  exposed  to  the  decomposing  heat  of  a 
torrid  sun. 

To  cheer  Philip  he  expressed  himself  otherwise ;  and  when, 
ever  they  talked  about  leaving  the  island,  it  was  not  to  save 
their  own  lives,  but  invariably  to  search  after  Philip's  lost  wife. 
The  plan  which  they  projKised  and  acted  upon  was,  to  con- 
struct a  light  raft,  the  centre  to  be  composed  of  three  water- 
casks,  sawed  in  half,  in  a  row  behind  each  other,  firmly  fixed 
by  cross  pieces  to  two  long  spars  on  each  side.  This,  under 
sail,  would  move  quickly  through  the  water,  and  be  manage- 
able so  as  to  enable  them  to  steer  a  course.  The  outside 
spars  had  been  selected  and  hauled  on  shore,  and  the  work 
was  already  in  progress;  but  they  were  left  alone  in  their 
work,  for  the  seamen  appeared  to  have  no  idea  at  present  of 
quitting  the  island.  Restored  by  food  and  repose,  they  were 
now  not  content  with  the  money  which  they  had — they  were 
anxious  for  more.  A  portion  of  each  party's  wealth  had  been 
238 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

dug  up,  and  they  now  gambled  all  day  with  pebbles,  which 
they  had  collected  on  the  beach,  and  with  which  they  had 
invented  a  game.  Another  evil  had  crept  among  them  ;  they 
had  cut  steps  in  the  largest  cocoa-nut  trees,  and  with  the 
activity  of  seamen  had  mounted  them,  and  by  tapping  the 
top  of  the  trees,  and  fixing  empty  cocoa-nuts  underneath,  had 
obtained  the  liquor,  which  in  its  first  fermentation  is  termed 
toddy,  and  is  afterwards  distilled  into  arrack.  But  as  toddy 
it  is  quite  sufficient  to  intoxicate ;  and  every  day  the  scenes 
of  violence  and  intoxication,  accompanied  with  oaths  and 
execrations,  became  more  and  more  dreadful.  The  losers 
tore  their  hair,  and  rushed  like  madmen  upon  those  who  had 
gained  their  dollars  ;  but  Krantz  had  fortunately  tin-own  their 
weapons  into  the  sea,  and  those  he  had  saved,  as  well  as  the 
ammunition,  he  had  secreted. 

Blows  and  bloodshed,  therefore,  were  continued,  but  loss  of 
life  there  was  none,  as  the  contending  parties  were  separated 
by  the  others,  who  were  anxious  that  the  play  should  not  be 
interrupted.  Such  had  been  the  state  of  affairs  for  now  nearly 
a  fortnight,  while  the  work  of  the  raft  had  slowly  proceeded. 
Some  of  the  men  had  lost  their  all,  and  had,  by  the  general 
consent  of  those  who  had  won  their  wealth,  been  banished  to 
a  certain  distance,  that  they  might  not  pilfer  from  them. 
These  walked  gloomily  round  the  island,  or  on  the  beach, 
seeking  some  instrument  by  which  they  might  avenge  them- 
selves, and  obtain  repossession  of  their  money.  Krantz  and 
Philip  had  proposed  to  these  men  to  join  them  and  leave  the 
island,  but  they  had  sullenly  refused. 

The  axe  was  now  never  parted  with  by  Krantz.  He  cut 
down  what  cocoa-nut  trees  they  required  for  subsistence,  and 
prevented  the  men  from'  notching  more  trees  to  procure  the 
means  of  inebriation.  On  the  sixteenth  day  all  the  money 
had  passed  into  the  hands  of  three  men,  who  had  been  more 
fortunate  than  the  rest.  The  losers  were  now  by  far  the  more 
numerous  party,  and  the  consequence  was,  that  the  next  morn- 
ing these  three  men  were  found  lying  strangled  on  the  beach; 
the  money  had  been  re-divided,  and  the  gambling  had  re- 
commenced with  more  vigour  than  ever. 

"  How  can  this  end  ?  "  exclaimed  Philip  to  Krantz,  as  he 
looked  upon  the  blackened  countenances  of  the  murdered 
men. 

239 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

"In  the  death  of  all,"  replied  Krantz.  "We  cannot  pre- 
rent  it.  It  is  a  judgment." 

The  raft  was  now  ready ;  the  sand  had  been  dug  from 
beneath  it  so  as  to  allow  the  water  to  flow  in  and  float  it,  and 
it  was  now  made  fast  to  a  stake,  and  riding  on  the  peaceful 
waters.  A  large  store  of  cocoa-nuts,  old  and  young,  had  been 
procured  and  put  on  board  of  her,  and  it  was  the  intention  of 
Philip  and  Krantz  to  have  quitted  the  island  the  next  day. 

Unfortunately,  one  of  the  men  when  bathing  had  per- 
ceived the  arms  lying  in  the  shallow  water.  He  had  dived 
down  and  procured  a  cutlass:  others  had  followed  his  example, 
and  all  had  armed  themselves.  This  induced  Philip  and 
Krantz  to  sleep  on  board  of  the  raft  and  keep  watch ;  and  that 
night,  as  the  play  was  going  on,  a  heavy  loss  on  one  side  ended 
in  a  general  fray.  The  combat  was  furious,  for  all  were  more 
or  less  excited  by  intoxication.  The  result  was  melancholy, 
for  only  three  were  left  alive.  Philip,  with  Krantz,  watched 
the  issue;  every  man  who  fell  wounded  was  put  to  the  sword, 
and  the  three  left,  who  had  been  fighting  on  the  same  side, 
rested  panting  on  their  weapons.  After  a  pause  two  of  them 
communicated  with  each  other,  and  the  result  was  an  attack 
upon  the  third  man,  who  fell  dead  beneath  their  blows. 

"  Merciful  Father  !  are  these  Thy  creatures  ? "  exclaimed 
Philip. 

"  No,"  replied  Krantz,  "  they  worshipped  the  devil  as 
Mammon.  Do  you  imagine  that  those  two,  who  could  now 
divide  more  wealth  than  they  could  well  spend  if  they  return 
to  their  country,  will  consent  to  a  division  ?  Never — they 
must  have  all — yes,  all ! " 

Krantz  had  hardly  expressed  his  opinion,  when  one  of  the 
men,  taking  advantage  of  the  other  turning  round  a  moment 
from  him,  passed  his  sword  through  his  back.  The  man  fell  with 
a  groan,  and  the  sword  was  again  jwissed  through  his  body. 

"Said  I  not  so?  But  the  treacherous  villain  shall  not  reap 
his  reward,"  continued  Krantz,  levelling  the  musket  which  ho 
held  in  his  hand,  and  shooting  him  dead. 

"  You  have  done  wrong,  Krantz  ;  you  have  saved  him  from 
the  punishment  he  deserved.  Left  alone  on  the  island,  with- 
out the  means  of  obtaining  his  subsistence,  be  must  have 
perished  miserably  and  by  inches,  with  all  his  money  round 
him ;  that  would  have  been  torture  indeed ! " 
240 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  Perhaps  I  was  wrong.  If  so,  may  Providence  forgive  me, 
I  could  not  help  it.  Let  us  go  ashore,  for  we  are  now  on  this 
island  alone.  We  must  collect  the  treasure  and  bury  it,  so 
that  it  may  be  recovered ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  take  a  portion 
with  us  ;  for  who  knows  but  that  we  may  have  occasion  for  it. 
To-morrow  we  had  better  remain  here,  for  we  shall  have  enough 
to  do  in  burying  the  bodies  of  these  infatuated  men,  and  the 
wealth  which  has  caused  their  destruction." 

Philip  agreed  to  the  propriety  of  the  suggestion.  The  next 
day  they  buried  the  bodies  where  they  lay ;  and  the  treasure 
was  all  collected  in  a  deep  trench,  under  a  cocoa-nut  tree, 
which  they  carefully  marked  with  their  axe.  About  five 
hundred  pieces  of  gold  were  selected  and  taken  on  board  of 
the  raft,  with  the  intention  of  secreting  them  about  their 
persons,  and  resorting  to  them  in  case  of  need. 

The  following  morning  they  hoisted  their  sail  and  quitted 
the  island.  Need  it  be  said  in  what  direction  they  steered  ? 
As  may  be  well  imagined,  in  that  quarter  where  they  had  last 
seen  the  raft  with  the  isolated  Amine. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

J  HE  raft  was  found  to  answer  well,  and  although  her  progress 
through  the  water  was  not  very  rapid,  she  obeyed  the  helm 
and  was  under  command.  Both  Philip  and  Krantz  were  very 
careful  in  taking  such  marks  and  observations  of  the  island 
as  should  enable  them,  if  necessary,  to  find  it  again.  With 
the  current  to  assist  them  they  now  proceeded  rapidly  to 
the  southward,  in  order  that  they  might  examine  a  large 
island  which  lay  in  that  direction.  Their  object,  after  seek- 
ing for  Amine,  was  to  find  out  the  direction  of  Ternate  ; 
the  king  of  which  they  knew  to  be  at  variance  with  the 
Portuguese,  who  had  a  fort  and  factory  at  Tidore,  not  very 
far  distant  from  it ;  and  from  thence  to  obtain  a  passage  in 
one  of  the  Chinese  junks,  which,  on  their  way  to  Bantam, 
called  at  that  island. 

Towards  evening  they  had  neared  the  large  island,  and  thev 
soon  ran  down  it  close  to  the  beach.      Philip's  eyes  wandered 
in  cvory  direction  to  ascertain  whether  anything  on  the  shore 
24-1  S 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

indicated  the  presence  of  Amine's  raft,  but  he  could  perceive 
nothing  of  the  kind,  nor  did  he  see  any  inhabitants. 

That  they  might  not  pass  the  object  of  their  search  during 
the  night,  they  ran  their  raft  on  shore,  in  a  small  cove  where 
the  waters  were  quite  smooth,  and  remained  there  until  the 
next  morning,  when  they  again  made  sail  and  prosecuted 
their  voyage.  Krantz  was  steering  with  the  long  sweep  they 
had  fitted  for  the  purpose,  when  he  observed  Philip,  who  had 
been  for  some  time  silent,  take  from  his  breast  the  relic  which 
he  wore,  and  gaze  attentively  upon  it. 

"Is  that  your  picture,  Philip?"  observed  Krantz. 

"Alas!  no,  it  is  my  destiny,"  replied  Philip,  answering 
without  reflection. 

"  Your  destiny  !     What  mean  you  ?  " 

"  Did  I  say  my  destiny  ?  I  hardly  know  what  I  said," 
replied  Philip,  replacing  the  relic  in  his  bosom. 

"I  rather  think  you  said  more  than  you  intended,"  replied 
Krantz  ;  "  but  at  the  same  time  something  near  the  truth.  I 
have  often  perceived  you' with  that  trinket  in  your  hand,  and 
I  have  not  forgotten  how  anxious  Schriften  was  to  obtain  it, 
and  the  consequences  of  his  attempt  upon  it.  Is  there  not 
some  secret — some  mystery  attached  to  it  ?  Surely,  if  so,  you 
must  now  sufficiently  know  me  as  your  friend  to  feel  me 
worthy  of  your  confidence." 

"  That  you  are  my  friend,  Krantz,  I  feel ;  my  sincere  and 
much-valued  friend,  for  we  have  shared  much  danger  together, 
and  that  is  sufficient  to  make  us  friends ;  that  I  could  trust 
you,  I  believe,  but  I  feel  as  if  I  dare  not  trust  any  one.  There 
is  a  mystery  attached  to  this  relic  (for  a  relic  it  is),  which  as 
yet  has  been  confided  to  my  wife  and  holy  men  alone." 

"And  if  trusted  to  holy  men,  surely  it  may  be  trusted  to 
sincere  friendship,  than  which  nothing  is  more  holy." 

"  But  I  have  a  presentiment  that  the  knowledge  of  my 
secret  would  prove  fatal  to  you.  Why  I  feel  such  a  presenti- 
ment I  know  not ;  but  I  feel  it,  Krantz ;  and  I  cannot  afford 
to  lose  you,  my  valued  friend." 

"  You  will  not,  then,  make  use  of  my  friendship,  it  appears," 
replied  Krantz.  "  I  have  risked  my  life  with  you  before  now, 
and  I  am  not  to  be  deterred  from  the  duties  of  friendship  by 
a  childish  foreboding  on  your  part,  the  result  of  an  agitated 
juind  and  a  weakened  body,  Can  anything  be  more  absurd  than 
242 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

to  suppose  that  a  secret  confided  to  me  can  be  pregnant  with 
danger,  unless  it  be,  indeed,  that  my  zeal  to  assist  you  may 
lead  me  into  difficulties.  I  am  not  of  a  prying  disposition ; 
but  we  have  been  so  long  connected  together,  and  are  now  so 
isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  it  appears  to  me  it 
would  be  a  solace  to  you,  were  you  to  confide  in  one  whom  you 
can  trust,  what  evidently  has  long  preyed  upon  your  mind. 
The  consolation  and  advice  of  a  friend,  Philip,  are  not  to  be 
despised,  and  you  will  feel  relieved  if  able  to  talk  over  with 
him  a  subject  which  evidently  oppresses  you.  If,  therefore,  you 
value  my  friendship,  let  me  share  with  you  in  your  sorrows." 

There  are  few  who  have  passed  through  life  so  quietly,  as 
not  to  recollect  how  much  grief  has  been  assuaged  by  confiding 
its  cause  to,  and  listening  to  the  counsels  and  consolations  of, 
some  dear  friend.  It  must  not,  therefore,  appear  surprising 
that,  situated  as  he  was,  and  oppressed  with  the  loss  of  Amine, 
Philip  should  regard  Krantz  as  one  to  whom  he  might  venture 
to  confide  his  important  secret.  He  commenced  his  narrative 
with  no  injunctions,  for  he  felt  that  if  Krantz  could  not 
respect  his  secret  for  his  secret's  sake,  or  from  goodwill  to- 
wards him,  he  was  not  likely  to  be  bound  by  any  promise  ;  and 
as,  during  the  day,  the  raft  passed  by  the  various  small  capes 
and  headlands  of  the  island,  he  poured  into  Krantz's  ear  the 
history  which  the  reader  is  acquainted  with.  "  Now  you  know 
all,"  said  Philip,  with  a  deep  sigh,  as  the  narrative  was  con- 
cluded. "  What  think  you  ?  Do  you  credit  my  strange  tale, 
or  do  you  imagine,  as  some  well  would,  that  it  is  a  mere 
phantom  of  a  disordered  brain  ?  " 

"That  it  is  not  so,  Philip,  I  believe,"  replied  Krantz;  "for 
I  too  have  had  ocular  proof  of  the  correctness  of  a  part  of 
your  history.  Remember  how  often  I  have  seen  this  Phantom 
Ship — and  if  vour  father  is  permitted  to  range  over  the  seas, 
why  should  you  not  be  selected  and  permitted  to  reverse  his 
doom  ?  I  fully  believe  every  word  that  you  have  told  me, 
and  since  you  have  told  me  this,  I  can  comprehend  much 
that  in  your  behaviour  at  times  appeared  unaccountable  ;  there 
are  many  who  would  pity  you,  Philip,  but  I  envy  you." 

"  Envy  me  ?  "  cried  Philip. 

"  Yes !  envy  you  :  and  gladly  would  I  take  the  burden  of 
yotn  doom  on  my  own  shoulders,  were  it  only  possible.  Is  it 
not  a  splendid  thought  that  you  are  summoned  to  so  great  a 
243 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

purpose — that  instead  of  roaming  through  the  world  as  we  all 
do  in  pursuit  of  wealth,  which  possibly  we  may  lose  after  years 
of  cost  and  hardship,  by  the  venture  of  a  day,  and  which,  at 
all  events,  we  must  leave  behind  us — you  are  selected  to  fulfil 
a  great  and  glorious  work — the  work  of  angels,  I  may  say — • 
that  of  redeeming  the  soul  of  a  father,  suffering,  indeed,  for 
his  human  frailties,  but  not  doomed  to  perish  for  eternity ; 
you  have,  indeed,  an  object  of  pursuit  worthy  of  all  the  hard- 
ships and  dangers  of  a  maritime  life.  If  it  end  in  your  death, 
what  then  ?  Where  else  ends  our  futile  cravings,  our  con- 
tinual toil  after  nothing  ?  We  all  must  die  ;  but  how  few — 
who,  indeed,  besides  yourself — was  ever  permitted  before  his 
death  to  ransom  the  soul  of  the  author  of  his  existence  !  Yes, 
Philip,  I  envy  you  ! " 

"You  think  and  speak  like  Amine.  She,  too,  is  of  a  wild 
and  ardent  soul,  that  would  mingle  with  the  beings  of  the 
other  world,  and  hold  intelligence  with  disembodied  spirits." 

"  She  is  right,"  replied  Krantz ;  "  there  are  events  in  my 
life,  or  rather  connected  with  my  family,  which  have  often 
fully  convinced  me  that  this  is  not  only  possible  but  per- 
mitted. Your  story  has  only  corroborated  what  I  already 
believed." 

"  Indeed,  Krantz  ?  " 

"Indeed  yes;  but  of  that  hereafter:  the  night  is  closing 
in  ;  we  must  again  put  our  little  bark  in  safety  for  the  night, 
and  there  is  a  cove  which  I  think  appears  suited  for  the 
purpose." 

Before  morning  a  strong  breeze,  right  on  shore,  had  sprung 
up,  and  the  surf  became  so  high  as  to  endanger  the  raft ;  to 
continue  their  course  was  impossible  ;  they  could  only  haul 
up  their  raft,  to  prevent  its  being  dashed  to  pieces  by  the 
force  of  the  waves,  as  the  seas  broke  on  the  shore.  Philip's 
thoughts  were,  as  usual,  upon  Amine ;  and  as  he  watched  the 
tossing  waters,  as  the  sunbeams  lightened  up  their  crests,  he 
exclaimed,  "Ocean,  hast  thou  my  Amine?  If  so,  give  up 
thy  dead  !  \Vhat  is  that  ?  "  continued  he,  pointing  to  a  speck 
on  the  horizon. 

"  The  sail  of  a  small  craft  of  some  description  or  another," 
replied  Krantz ;  "  and  apparently  coming  down  before  the 
wind  to  shelter  herself  in  the  very  nook  we  have  selected." 

"  You  are  right ;  it  is  the  sail  of  a  vessel — of  one  of  those 
214, 


THE  PHANTOM    SHIP 

pcroquas  which  skim  over  these  seas;  how  she  rises  on  the 
swell !  She  is  full  of  men,  apparently." 

The  peroqua  rapidly  approached,  and  was  soon  close  to  the 
beach ;  the  sail  was  lowered,  and  she  was  backed  in  through 
the  surf. 

"  Resistance  is  useless  should  they  prove  enemies,"  observed 
Philip.  "We  shall  soon  know  our  fate." 

The  people  in  the  peroqua  took  no  notice  of  them  until  the 
craft  had  been  hauled  up  and  secured ;  three  of  them  then 
advanced  towards  Philip  and  Krantz,  with  spears  in  their 
hands,  but  evidently  with  no  hostile  intentions.  One  ad- 
dressed them  in  Portuguese,  asking  them  who  they  were. 

"  We  are  Hollanders,"  replied  Philip. 

"A  part  of  the  crew  of  the  vessel  which  was  wrecked?" 
inquired  he. 

"  Yes  ! " 

"  You  have  nothing  to  fear ;  you  are  enemies  to  the  Portu- 
guese, and  so  are  we.  We  belong  to  the  island  of  Ternate  ; 
our  king  is  at  war  with  the  Portuguese,  who  are  villains. 
Where  are  your  companions  ?  On  which  island  ?  " 

"  They  are  all  dead,"  replied  Philip.  "  May  I  ask  you 
whether  you  have  fallen  in  with  a  woman  who  was  adrift  on 
a  part  of  the  raft  by  herself :  or  have  you  heard  of  her  ?  " 

"We  have  heard  that  a  woman  was  picked  up  on  the 
beach  to  the  southward,  and  carried  away  by  the  Ticlore 
people  to  the  Portuguese  settlement,  on  the  supposition  that 
she  was  a  Portuguese." 

"  Then,  God  be  thanked,  she  is  saved,"  cried  Philip. 
"Merciful  Heaven,  accept  my  thanks!  ToTidore,  you  said?" 

"  Yes  ;  we  are  at  war  with  the  Portuguese  ;  we  cannot  take 
you  there." 

"  No  !  but  we  shall  meet  again." 

The  person  who  accosted  them  was  evidently  of  con- 
sequence. His  dress  was,  to  a  certain  degree,  Mohammedan, 
but  mixed  up  with  Malay  ;  he  carried  arms  in  his  girdle  and 
a  spear  in  his  hand  ;  his  turban  was  of  printed  chintz ;  and 
his  deportment,  like  most  persons  of  rank  in  that  country, 
was  courteous  and  dignified. 

"  We  are  how  returning  to  Ternate,  and  will  take  you  with 
us.  Our  king  will  be  pleased  to  receive  any  Hollanders, 
especially  as  you  are  enemies  to  the  Portuguese  dogs.  I 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

forgot  to  tell  you  that  we  have  one  of  your  companions  with 
us  in  the  boat ;  we  picked  him  up  at  sea  much  exhausted,  but 
he  is  now  doing  well." 

"  Who  can  it  be  ? "  observed  Krantz ;  "  it  must  be  some 
one  belonging  to  some  other  vessel." 

"No,"  replied  Philip,  shuddering;  "it  must  be  Schriften." 

"  Then  my  eyes  must  behold  him  before  I  believe  it/'  re- 
plied Krantz. 

"Then  believe  your  eyes/'  replied  Philip,  pointing  to  the 
form  of  Schriften,  who  was  now  walking  towards  them. 

"  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  glad  to  see  you.  Mynheer 
Krantz,  I  hope  you  are  well.  How  lucky  that  we  should  all 
be  saved  !  He  !  he  ! " 

"  The  ocean  has  then,  indeed,  given  up  its  dead,  as  I  re- 
quested," thought  Philip. 

In  the  meantime,  Schriften,  without  making  any  reference 
to  the  way  in  which  they  had  so  unceremoniously  parted 
company,  addressed  Krantz  with  apparent  good-humour,  and 
some  slight  tinge  of  sarcasm.  It  was  some  time  before 
Krantz  could  rid  himself  of  him. 

"  What  think  you  of  him,  Krantz  ?  " 

"  That  he  is  a  part  of  the  whole,  and  has  his  destiny  to 
fulfil  as  well  as  you.  He  has  his  part  to  play  in  this  wondrous 
mystery,  and  will  remain  until  it  is  finished.  Think  not  of 
him.  Recollect  your  Amine  is  safe." 

"  True,"  replied  Philip,  "  the  wretch  is  not  worth  a 
thought;  we  have  now  nothing  to  do  but  to  embark  with 
these  people  :  hereafter  we  may  rid  ourselves  of  him,  and 
strive  then  to  rejoin  my  dearest  Amine." 


CHAPTER  XXVIH 

YV  HEN  Amine  again  came  to  her  senses  she  found  herself 
lying  on  the  leaves  of  the  palmetto,  in  a  small  hut.  A  hideous 
black  child  sat  by  her,  brushing  off  the  flies.  Where  was 
she? 

The  raft  had  been  tossed  about  for  two  days,  during  which 
Amine  remained  in  a  state  of  alternate  delirium  and  stupor. 
Driven  by  the  current  and  the  gale,  it  had  been  thrown  on 
246 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

shore  on  the  eastern  end  of  the  coast  of  New  Guinea.  She 
had  been  discovered  by  some  of  the  natives,  who  happened 
to  be  on  the  beach,  trafficking  with  some  of  the  Tidore 
people.  At  first  they  hastened  to  rid  her  of  her  garments, 
although  they  perceived  that  she  was  not  dead ;  but  before 
they  had  left  her  as  naked  as  themselves,  a  diamond  of  great 
value,  which  had  been  given  to  her  by  Philip,  attracted  the 
attention  of  one  of  the  savages :  failing  in  his  attempt  to 
pull  it  off,  he  pulled  out  a  rusty,  blunt  knife,  and  was  busily 
sawing  at  the  finger  when  an  old  woman  of  authority  inter- 
fered and  bade  him  desist.  The  Tidore  people  also,  who 
were  friends  with  the  Portuguese,  pointed  out  that  to  save 
one  of  that  nation  would  insure  a  reward  ;  they  stated, 
moreover,  that  they  would,  on  their  return,  inform  the  people 
of  the  factory  establishment  that  one  of  their  country- 
women had  been  thrown  ashore  on  a  raft.  To  this  Amine 
owed  the  care  and  attention  that  was  paid  to  her  ;  that  part 
of  New  Guinea  being  somewhat  civilised  by  occasional  inter- 
course with  the  Tidore  people,  who  came  there  to  exchange 
European  finery  and  trash  for  the  more  useful  productions  of 
the  island. 

The  Papoose  woman  carried  Amine  into  her  hut,  and  there 
she  lay  for  many  days,  wavering  between  life  and  death,  care- 
fully attended,  but  requiring  little,  except  the  moistening 
of  her  parched  lips  with  water,  and  the  brushing  off  of  the 
mosquitoes  and  flies. 

When  Amine  opened  her  eyes,  the  little  Papoose  ran  out  to 
acquaint  the  woman,  who  followed  her  into  the  hut.  She  was 
of  large  size,  very  corpulent  and  unwieldy,  with  little  covering 
on  her  body ;  her  hair,  which  was  woolly  in  its  texture,  was 
partly  plaited,  partly  frizzled  ;  a  cloth  round  her  waist  and  a 
piece  of  faded  yellow  silk  on  her  shoulders  were  all  her  dress. 
A  few  silver  rings  on  her  fat  fingers,  and  a  necklace  of  mother- 
of-pearl,  were  her  ornaments.  Her  teeth  were  jet  black,  from 
the  use  of  the  betel-nut,  and  her  whole  appearance  was  such 
as  to  excite  disgust  in  the  breast  of  Amine. 

She  addressed  Amine,  but  her  words  were  unintelligible  : 
and  the  sufferer,  exhausted  with  the  slight  effort  she  had  made, 
fell  back  into  her  former  position,  and  closed  her  eyes.  But  if 
the  woman  was  disgusting,  she  was  kind ;  and  by  her  attention 
and  care  Axine  was  able,  in  the  course  of  three  weeks,  to 
247 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

crawl  out  of  the  hut  and  enjoy  the  evening  breeze.  The 
natives  of  the  island  would  at  times  surround  her,  but  they 
treated  her  with  respect,  from  fear  of  the  old  woman.  Their 
woolly  hair  was  frizzled  or  plaited,  sometimes  powdered 
white  with  chunam.  A  few  palmetto-leaves  round  the  waist 
and  descending  to  the  knee  were  their  only  attire ;  rings 
through  the  nose  and  ears,  and  feathers  of  birds,  particularly 
the  bird  of  paradise,  were  their  ornaments  ;  but  their  language 
was  wholly  unintelligible.  Amine  felt  grateful  for  life  ;  she 
sat  under  the  shade  of  the  trees,  and  watched  the  swift 
peroquas  as  they  skimmed  the  blue  sea  which  was  expanded 
before  her ;  but  her  thoughts  were  elsewhere — they  were  on 
Philip. 

One  morning  Amine  came  out  of  the  hut,  with  joy  on  her 
countenance,  and  took  her  usual  seat  under  the  trees.  "  Yes, 
mother,  dearest  mother,  I  thank  thee ;  thou  hast  appeared  to 
me  ;  thou  hast  recalled  to  me  thy  arts,  which  I  had  forgotten, 
and  had  I  but  the  means  of  conversing  with  these  people,  even 
now  would  I  know  where  my  Philip  might  be." 

For  two  months  did  Amine  remain  under  the  care  of  the 
Papoose  woman.  When  the  Tidore  people  returned,  they  had 
an  order  to  bring  the  white  woman  who  had  been  cast  on  shore 
to  the  factory,  and  repay  those  who  had  taken  charge  of  her. 
They  made  signs  to  Amine,  who  had  now  quite  recovered  her 
beauty,  that  she  was  to  go  with  them.  Any  change  was  pre- 
ferable to  staying  where  she  was,  and  Amine  followed  them 
down  to  a  peroqua,  on  which  she  was  securely  fixed,  and  was 
soon  darting  through  the  water  with  her  new  companions;  and, 
as  they  flew  along  the  smooth  seas,  Amine  thought  of  Philip's 
dream  and  the  mermaid's  shell. 

By  the  evening  they  had  arrived  at  the  southern  point  of 
Galolo,  where  they  landed  for  the  night :  the  next  clay  they 
gained  the  place  of  their  destination,  and  Amine  was  led  up 
to  the  Portuguese  factory. 

That  the  curiosity  of  those  who  were  stationed  there  was 
roused  is  not  to  be  wondered  at — the  history  given  by  the 
natives  of  Amine's  escape  appeared  so  miraculous.  From  the 
commandant  to  the  lowest  servant,  every  one  was  waiting  to 
receive  her.  The  beauty  of  Amine,  her  perfect  form,  astonished 
them.  The  commandant  addressed  a  very  long  compliment  to 
•her  in  Portuguese,  and  was  astonished  that  she  did  not  make 
SM 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

ft  suitable  reply  ;  but  as  Amine  did  not  understand  a  word 
that  he  said,  it  would  have  been  more  surprising  if  she  had. 

As  Amine  made  signs  that  she  could  not  understand  the 
language,  it  was  presumed  that  she  was  either  English  or 
Dutch,  and  an  interpreter  was  sent  for.  She  then  explained 
that  she  was  the  wife  of  a  Dutch  captain,  whose  vessel  had 
been  wrecked,  and  that  she  did  not  know  whether  the  crew 
had  been  saved  or  not.  The  Portuguese  were  very  glad  to 
hear  that  a  Dutch  vessel  had  been  wrecked,  and  very  glad 
that  so  lovely  a  creature  as  Amine  had  been  saved.  She  was 
informed  by  the  commandant  that  she  was  welcome,  and  that 
during  her  stay  there  everything  should  be  done  to  make  her 
comfortable;  that  in  three  months  they  expected  a  vessel  from 
the  Chinese  seas  proceeding  to  Goa,  and  that,  if  inclined,  she 
should  have  a  passage  to  Goa  in  that  vessel,  and  from  that  city 
she  would  easily  find  other  vessels  to  take  her  wherever  she 
might  please  to  go  ;  she  was  then  conducted  to  an  apartment, 
and  left  with  a  little  negress  to  attend  upon  her. 

The  Portuguese  commandant  was  a  small,  meagre  little  man, 
dried  up  to  a  chip,  from  long  sojourning  under  a  tropical  sun. 
He  had  very  large  whiskers  and  a  very  long  sword  ;  these  were 
the  two  most  remarkable  features  in  his  person  and  dress. 

His  attentions  could  not  be  misinterpreted  ;  and  Amine 
would  have  laughed  at  him,  had  she  not  been  fearful  that  she 
might  be  detained.  In  a  few  weeks,  by  due  attention,  she 
gained  the  Portuguese  language  so  far  as  to  ask  for  what  she 
required  ;  and  before  she  quitted  the  island  of  Tidore  she  could 
converse  fluently.  But  her  anxiety  to  leave,  and  to  ascertain 
what  had  become  of  Philip,  became  greater  eveiy  day  ;  and  at 
the  expiration  of  the  three  months  her  eyes  were  continually 
bent  to  seaward,  to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  the  vessel  which 
•was  expected.  At  last  it  appeared ;  and  as  Amine  watched 
the  approach  of  the  canvas  from  the  west,  the  commandant 
fell  on  his  knees,  and  declaring  his  passion,  requested  her  not 
to  think  of  departure,  but  to  unite  her  fate  with  his. 

Amine  was  cautious  in  her  reply,  for  she  knew  that  she 
was  in  his  power.  "  She  must  first  receive  intelligence  of  her 
husband's  death,  which  was  not  yet  certain  ;  she  would  pro- 
ceed to  Goa,  and  if  she  discovered  that  she  was  single,  she 
Would  write  to  him." 

This  answer,  as  it  will  be  discovered,  was  the  cause  of  great 
849 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

suffering  to  Philip.  The  commandant,  full}'  assured  that  he 
could  compass  Philip's  death,  was  satisfied  ;  declared  that,  as 
soon  as  he  had  any  positive  intelligence,  he  would  bring  it  to 
Goa  himself,  and  made  a  thousand  protestations  of  truth  and 
fidelity. 

"  Fool ! "  thought  Amine,  as  she  watched  the  ship,  which 
was  now  close  to  the  anchorage. 

In  half-an-hour  the  vessel  had  anchored,  and  the  people  had 
landed.  Amine  observed  a  priest  with  them  as  they  walked  up 
to  the  fort.  She  shuddered — she  knew  not  why.  When  they 
arrived,  she  found  herself  in  the  presence  of  Father  Mathias. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

BOTH  Amine  and  Father  Mathias  started,  and  drew  back 
with  surprise  at  this  unexpected  meeting.  Amine  was  the 
first  to  extend  her  hand ;  she  had  almost  forgotten  at  the 
moment  how  they  had  parted,  in  the  pleasure  she  experienced 
in  meeting  with  a  well-known  face. 

Father  Mathias  coldly  took  her  hand,  and  laying  his  own 
upon  her  head,  said,  "  May  God  bless  thee,  and  forgive  thee, 
my  daughter,  as  I  have  long  done."  Then  the  recollection  of 
what  had  passed  rushed  into  Amine's  mind,  and  she  coloured 
deeply. 

Had  Father  Mathias  forgiven  her  ?  The  event  would  show ; 
but  this  is  certain,  he  now  treated  her  as  an  old  friend,  listened 
with  interest  to  her  history  of  the  wreck,  and  agreed  with  her 
upon  the  propriety  of  her  accompanying  him  to  Goa. 

In  a  few  days  the  vessel  sailed,  and  Amine  quitted  the 
factory  and  its  enamoured  commandant.  They  ran  through 
the  archipelago  in  safety,  and  were  crossing  the  mouth  of  the 
Bay  of  Bengal,  without  having  had  any  interruption  of  fine 
weather. 

Father  Mathias  had  returned  to  Lisbon  when  he  quitted 
Ternicore,  and,  tired  of  idleness,  had  again  volunteered  to 
proceed  as  a  missionary  to  India.  He  had  arrived  at  Formosa, 
and,  shortly  after  his  arrival,  had  received  directions  from  his 
superior  to  return,  on  important  business,  to  Goa;  and  thus  it? 
was  that  he  fell  in  with  Amine  at  Tidore. 
£50 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

It  would  be  difficult  to  analyse  the  feelings  of  Father  Mathias 
towards  Aniine ;  they  varied  so  often.  At  one  moment  he 
would  call  to  mind  the  kindness  shown  to  him  by  her  and 
Philip,  the  regard  he  had  for  the  husband,  and  the  many  good 
qualities  which  he  acknowledged  that  she  possessed  ;  and  noro 
he  would  recollect  the  disgrace,  the  unmerited  disgrace,  he 
had  suffered  through  her  means ;  and  he  would  then  canvass 
whether  she  really  did  believe  him  an  intruder  in  her  chamber 
for  other  motives  than  those  which  actuated  him,  or  whether 
she  had  taken  advantage  of  his  indiscretion.  These  accounts 
were  nearly  balanced  in  his  mind ;  he  could  have  forgiven  all 
if  he  had  thought  that  Amine  was  a  sincere  convert  to  the 
Church ;  but  his  strong  conviction  that  she  was  not  only  an 
unbeliever,  but  that  she  practised  forbidden  arts,  turned  the 
scale  against  her.  He  watched  her  narrowly,  and  when,  in 
her  conversation,  she  showed  any  religious  feeling  his  heart 
warmed  towards  her ;  but  when,  on  the  contrary,  any  words 
escaped  her  lips  which  seemed  to  show  that  she  thought 
lightly  of  his  creed,  then  the  full  tide  of  indignation  and 
vengeance  poured  into  his  bosom. 

It  was  in  crossing  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  to  pass  round  the 
southern  cape  of  Ceylon,  that  they  first  met  with  bad  weather; 
and  when  the  storm  increased,  the  superstitious  seamen  lighted 
candles  before  the  small  image  of  the  saint  which  was  shrined 
on  deck.  Amine  observed  it,  and  smiled  with  scorn  ;  and  as 
she  did  so,  almost  unwittingly,  she  perceived  that  the  eye  of 
Father  Mathias  was  earnestly  fixed  upon  her. 

"The  Papooses  I  have  just  left  do  no  worse  than  worship 
their  idols,  and  are  termed  idolaters,"  muttered  Amine. 
"  What  then  are  these  Christians  ?  " 

«  Would  you  not  be  better  below  ?  "  said  Father  Mathias, 
coming  over  to  Amine.  "  This  is  no  time  for  women  to  be  on 
deck  ;  they  would  be  better  employed  in  offering  up  prayers 
for  safety." 

"  Nay,  father,  I  can  pray  better  here.  I  like  this  conflict 
of  the  elements;  and  as  I  view,  I  bow  down  in  admiration  of 
the  Deity  who  rules  the  storm — who  sends  the  winds  forth  in 
their  wrath,  or  soothes  them  into  peace." 

"It  is  well  said,  my  child,"  replied  Father  Mathias;  "but 
the  Almighty  is  not  only  to  be  worshipped  in  His  works,  but 
in  the  closet,  with  meditation,  self-examination,  and  faith. 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

Hast  thou  followed  up  the  precepts  which  thou  hast  been 
taught  ? — hast  thou  reverenced  the  sublime  mysteries  which 
have  been  unfolded  to  thee  ?  " 

"  I  have  done  my  best,  father,"  replied  Amine,  turning  away 
her  head,  and  watching  the  rolling  wave. 

"Hast  thou  called  upon  the  Holy  Virgin,  and  upon  the 
saints — those  intercessors  for  mortals  erring  like  thyself?" 

Amine  made  no  answer ;  she  did  not  wish  to  irritate  the 
priest,  neither  would  she  tell  an  untruth. 

"  Answer  me,  child,"  continued  the  priest,  with  severity. 

"  Father,"  replied  Amine,  "  I  have  appealed  to  God  alone 
— the  God  of  the  Christians — the  God  of  the  whole  universe  ! " 

"Who  believes  not  everything  believes  nothing,  young 
woman.  I  thought  as  much  !  I  saw  thee  smile  with  scorn 
just  now.  Why  didst  thou  smile  ?  " 

"  At  my  own  thoughts,  good  father." 

"  Say  rather  at  the  true  faith  shown  by  others." 

^Vmine  made  no  answer. 

"Thou  art  an  unbeliever  and  a  heretic.  Beware,  young 
woman  ! — beware  ! " 

"  Beware  of  what,  good  father  ?  Why  should  I  beware  ? 
Are  there  not  millions  in  these  climes  more  unbelieving  and 
more  heretic,  perhaps,  than  I  ?  How  many  have  you  converted 
to  your  faith  ?  What  trouble,  what  toil,  what  dangers  have 
you  not  undergone  to  propagate  that  creed  ;  arid  why  do  you 
succeed  so  ill  ?  Shall  I  tell  you,  father  ?  It  is  because  the 
people  have  already  had  a  creed  of  their  own — a  creed  taught 
to  them  from  their  infancy  and- acknowledged  by  all  who  live 
about  them.  Am  I  not  in  the  same  position  ?  I  was  brought 
up  in  another  creed  ;  and  can  you  expect  that  that  can  be  dis- 
missed, and  the  prejudices  of  early  years  at  once  eradicated  ? 
I  have  thought  much  of  what  you  have  told  me — have  felt  that 
much  is  true — that  the  tenets  of  your  creed  are  godlike :  is 
not  that  much  ?  and  yet  you  are  not  content.  You  would 
have  blind  acknowledgment,  blind  obedience  :  I  were  then  an 
unworthy  convert.  We  shall  soon  be  in  port ;  then  teach 
me,  and  convince  me,  if  you  will.  I  am  ready  to  examine  and 
confess,  but  on  conviction  only.  Have  patience,  good  father, 
and  the  time  may  come  when  I  may  feel  what  now  I  do  not — 
that  yon  bit  of  painted  wood  is  a  thing  to  bow  down  tQ 
and  adore." 

889 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

Notwithstanding  this  taunt  at  the  close  of  this  speech,  there 
was  so  much  truth  in  the  observations  of  Amine  that  Father 
Mathias  felt  their  power.  As  the  wife  of  a  Catholic,  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  view  Amine  as  one  who  had  backslided 
from  the  Church  of  Rome — not  as  one  who  had  been  brought 
up  in  another  creed.  He  now  recalled  to  mind  that  she  had 
never  yet  been  received  into  the  Church,  for  Father  Seysen  had 
not  considered  her  as  in  a  proper  state  to  be  admitted,  and  had 
deferred  her  baptism  until  he  was  satisfied  of  her  full  belief. 

"  You  speak  boldly  :  but  you  speak  as  you  feel,  my  child," 
replied  Father  Mathias,  after  a  pause.  "  We  will,  when  we 
arrive  at  Goa,  talk  over  these  things,  and,  with  the  blessing 
of  God,  the  new  faith  shall  be  made  manifest  to  you." 

"  So  be  it,"  replied  Amine. 

Little  did  the  priest  imagine  that  Amine's  thoughts  were  at 
that  moment  upon  a  dream  she  had  had  at  New  Guinea,  in 
which  her  mother  had  appeared,  and  revealed  to  her  her  magic 
arts,  and  that  Amine  was  longing  to  arrive  at  Goa  that  she 
might  practise  them. 

Every  hour  the  gale  increased,  and  the  vessel  laboured  and 
leaked.  The  Portuguese  sailors  were  frightened,  and  invoked 
their  saints.  Father  Mathias  and  the  other  passengers  gave 
themselves  up  for  lost,  for  the  pumps  could  not  keep  the  vessel 
free  ;  and  their  cheeks  blanched  as  the  waves  washed  furiously 
over  the  vessel :  they  prayed  and  trembled.  Father  Mathias 
gave  them  absolution.  Some  cried  like  children,  some  tore 
their  hair,  some  cursed,  and  cursed  the  saints  they  had  but  the 
day  before  invoked.  But  Amine  stood  unmoved  ;  and  as  she 
heard  them  curse,  she  smiled  in  scorn. 

"  My  child,"  said  Father  Mathias,  checking  his  tremulous 
voice,  that  he  might  not  appear  agitated  before  one  whom  he 
saw  so  calm  and  unmoved  amidst  the  roaring  of  the  elements 
— "my  child,  let  not  this  hour  of  peril  pass  away.  Before 
thou  art  summoned,  let  me  receive  thee  into  the  bosom  of 
our  Church — give  thee  pardon  for  thy  sins,  and  certainty  of 
bliss  hereafter." 

"  Good  father,  Amine  is  not  to  be  frightened  into  belief,  even 
if  she  feared  the  storm,"  replied  she  ;  "  nor  will  she  credit  your 
power  to  forgive  her  sins  merely  because  she  says  in  fear  that 
which  in  her  calm  reason  she  might  reject.  If  ever  fear  could 
have  subjected  me,  it  was  when  I  was  alone  upon  the  raft : 
253 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

that  was,  indeed,  a  trial  of  my  strength  of  mind,  the  bare 
recollection  of  which  is,  at  this  moment,  more  dreadful  than 
the  storm  now  raging,  and  the  death  which  may  await  us. 
There  is  a  God  on  high  in  whose  mercy  I  trust ;  in  whose  love 
I  confide ;  to  whose  will  I  bow.  Let  Him  do  His  will." 

"  Die  not,  my  child,  in  unbelief." 

"  Father,"  replied  Amine,  pointing  to  the  passengers  and 
seamen,  who  were  on  the  deck,  crying  and  wailing,  "  these 
are  Christians — these  men  have  been  promised  by  you,  but 
now,  the  inheritance  of  perfect  bliss.  What  is  their  faith, 
that  it  does  not  give  them  strength  to  die  like  men  ?  Why 
is  it  that  a  woman  quails  not,  while  they  lie  grovelling  on 
the  deck  ? " 

"  Life  is  sweet,  my  child — they  leave  their  wives,  their 
children,  and  they  dread  hereafter.  Who  is  prepared  to 
die?" 

"  I  am,"  replied  Amine.  "  I  have  no  husband.  At  least,  I 
fear  I  have  no  husband.  For  me  life  has  no  sweets  ;  yet,  one 
little  hope  remains — a  straw  to  the  sinking  wretch.  I  fear  not 
death,  for  I  have  naught  to  live  for.  Were  Philip  here,  why, 
then  indeed — but  he  has  gone  before  me,  and  now,  to  follow 
him  is  all  I  ask." 

"  He  died  in  the  faith,  my  child — if  you  would  meet  him,  do 
the  same." 

"  He  never  died  like  these,"  replied  Amine,  looking  with 
scorn  at  the  passengers. 

"  Perhaps  he  lived  not  as  they  have  lived,"  replied  Father 
Mathias.  "  A  good  man  dies  in  peace,  and  hath  no  fear." 

"  So  die  the  good  men  of  all  creeds,  father,"  replied  Amine  ; 
"and  in  all  creeds  death  is  equally  terrible  to  the  wicked." 

"  I  will  pray  for  thee,  my  child,"  said  Father  Mathias,  sink- 
ing on  his  knees. 

"  Many  thanks ;  thy  prayers  will  be  heard,  even  though 
offered  for  one  like  me,"  replied  Amine,  who,  clinging  to  the 
man-ropes,  made  her  way  up  to  the  ladder,  and  gained  the 
deck. 

"  Lost !  signora,  lost ! "  exclaimed  the  captain,  wringing  his 
hands  as  he  crouched  under  the  bulwark. 

"No  ! "  replied  Amine,  who  had  gained  the  weather  side,  and 
held  on  by  a  rope  ;  "not  lost  this  time." 

*  How  say  you,  signora  ? "  replied  the  captain,  looking  with 
254, 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

admiration  at  Amine's  calm  and  composed  countenance, 
"  How  say  you,  signora  ?  " 

"  Something  tells  me,  good  captain,  that  you  will  not  be  lost 
if  you  exert  yourselves — something  tells  it  to  me  here,"  and 
Amine  laid  her  hand  to  her  heart.  Amine  had  a  conviction 
that  the  vessel  would  not  be  lost,  for  it  had  not  escaped  her 
observation  that  the  storm  was  less  violent,  although,  in  their 
terror,  this  had  been  unnoticed  by  the  sailors. 

The  coolness  of  Amine,  her  beauty,  perhaps,  the  unusual 
sight  of  a  woman  so  young,  calm  and  confiding,  when  all  others 
were  in  despair,  had  its  due  effect  upon  the  captain  and 
seamen.  Supposing  her  to  be  a  Catholic,  they  imagined  that 
she  had  had  some  warrant  for  her  assertion,  for  credulity  and 
superstition  are  close  friends.  They  looked  upon  Amine  with 
admiration  and  respect,  recovered  their  energies,  and  applied 
to  their  duties.  The  pumps  were  again  worked  ;  the  storm 
abated  during  the  night,  and  the  vessel  was,  as  Amine  had  pre- 
dicted, saved. 

The  crew  and  passengers  looked  upon  her  almost  as  a  saint, 
and  talked  of  her  to  Father  Mathias,  who  was  sadly  perplexed. 
The  courage  which  she  had  displayed  was  extraordinary  ;  even 
when  he  trembled,  she  showed  no  sign  of  fear.  He  made  no 
reply,  but  communed  with  his  own  mind,  and  the  result  was 
unfavourable  to  Amine.  What  had  given  her  such  coolness  ? 
What  had  given  her  the  spirit  of  prophecy  ?  Not  the  God 
of  the  Christians,  for  she  was  no  believer.  Who  then  ?  and 
Father  Mathias  thought  of  her  chamber  at  Terneuse,  and 
shook  his  head. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

W  E  must  now  again  return  to  Philip  and  Krantz,  who  had  a 
long  conversation  upon  the  strange  reappearance  of  Schriften. 
All  that  they  could  agree  upon  was  that  he  should  be  care- 
fully watched,  and  that  they  should  dispense  with  his  com- 
pany as  soon  as  possible.  Krantz  had  interrogated  him  as 
to  his  escape,  and  Schriften  had  informed  him,  in  his  usual 
sneering  manner,  that  one  of  the  sweeps  of  the  raft  had  been 
allowed  to  get  adrift  during  the  scuffle,  and  that  he  had 
floated  on  it,  until  he  had  gained  a  small  island  ;  that  on 
255 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

seeing  the  peroqua,  he  had  once  more  launched  it,  and  sup- 
ported himself  by  it,  until  he  was  perceived  and  picked  up. 
As  there  was  nothing  impossible,  although  much  of  the 
improbable,  in  this  account,  Krantz  asked  no  more  questions. 
The  next  morning,  the  wind  having  abated,  they  launched 
the  peroqua,  and  made  sail  for  the  island  of  Ternate. 

It  was  four  days  before  they  arrived,  as  every  night  they 
landed  and  hauled  up  their  craft  on  the  sandy  beach.  Philip's 
heart  was  relieved  at  the  knowledge  of  Amine's  safety,  and 
he  could  have  been  happy  at  the  prospect  of  again  meeting 
her,  had  he  not  been  so  constantly  fretted  by  the  company 
of  Sch  rif ten. 

There  was  something  so  strange,  so  contrary  to  human 
nature,  that  the  little  man,  though  diabolical  as  he  appeared 
to  be  in  his  disposition,  should  never  hint  at,  or  complain  of, 
Philip's  attempts  upon  his  life.  Had  he  complained — had  he 
accused  Philip  of  murder — had  he  vowed  vengeance,  and  de- 
manded justice  on  his  return  to  the  authorities,  it  had  been 
different ;  but  no — there  he  was,  making  his  uncalled-for  and 
impertinent  observations — with  his  eternal  chuckle  and  sar- 
casm, as  if  he  had  not  the  least  cause  of  anger  or  ill-will. 

As  soon  as  they  arrived  at  the  principal  port  and  town  of 
Ternate,  they  were  conducted  to  a  large  cabin,  built  of  pal- 
metto-leaves and  bamboo,  and  requested  not  to  leave  it  until 
their  arrival  had  been  announced  to  the  king.  The  peculiar 
courtesy  and  good  breeding  of  these  islanders  were  the  con- 
stant themes  of  remark  of  Philip  and  Krantz  ;  their  religion, 
as  well  as  their  dress,  appeared  to  be  a  compound  of  the 
Mohammedan  and  Malayan. 

After  a  few  hours,  they  were  summoned  to  attend  the 
audience  of  the  king,  held  in  the  open  air.  The  king  was 
seated  under  a  portico,  attended  by  a  numerous  concourse  of 
priests  and  soldiers.  There  was  much  company  but  little 
splendour.  All  who  were  about  the  king  were  robed  in 
white,  with  white  turbans,  but  he  himself  was  without  orna- 
ment. The  first  thing  that  struck  Philip  and  Krantz,  when 
they  were  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the  king,  was  the 
beautiful  cleanliness  which  everywhere  prevailed  ;  every  dress 
was  spotless  and  white  as  the  sun  could  bleach  it. 

Having  followed  the  example  of  those  who  introduced  them, 
and  saluted  the  king  after  the  Mohammedan  custom,  they  were 
256 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

requested  to  be  seated ;  and  through  the  Portuguese  inter- 
preters— for  the  former  communication  of  the  islanders  with 
the  Portuguese  who  had  been  driven  from  the  place,  made  the 
Portuguese  language  well  known  by  many — a  few  questions 
were  put  by  the  king,  who  bade  them  welcome,  and  then 
requested  to  know  how  they  were  wrecked. 

Philip  entered  into  a  short  detail,  in  which  he  stated  that 
his  wife  had  been  separated  from  him,  and  was,  he  under- 
stood, in  the  hands  of  the  Portuguese  factor  at  Tidore.  He 
requested  to  know  if  his  majesty  could  assist  him  in  obtaining 
her  release,  or  in  going  to  join  her. 

"  It  is  well  said,"  replied  the  king.  "  Let  refreshments 
be  brought  in  for  the  strangers,  and  the  audience  be 
broken  up." 

In  a  few  minutes  there  remained  of  all  the  court  but  two 
or  three  of  the  king's  confidential  friends  and  advisers ;  and 
a  collation  of  curries,  fish,  and  a  variety  of  other  dishes  was 
served  up.  After  it  was  over,  the  king  then  said,  "  The 
Portuguese  are  dogs,  they  are  our  enemies — will  you  assist 
us  to  fight  them  ?  We  have  large  guns,  but  do  not  under- 
stand the  use  of  them  as  well  as  you  do.  I  will  send  a  fleet 
against  the  Portuguese  at  Tidore,  if  you  will  assist  me.  Say, 
Hollanders,  will  you  fight  ?  You,"  addressing  Philip,  "  will 
then  recover  your  wife." 

"  I  will  give  an  answer  to  you  to-morrow,"  replied  Philip  ; 
"  I  must  consult  with  my  friend.  As  I  told  you  before,  I 
was  the  captain  of  the  ship,  and  this  was  my  second  in  com- 
mand— we  will  consult  together."  Schriften,  whom  Philip 
had  represented  as  a  common  seaman,  had  not  been  brought 
up  into  the  presence  of  the  king. 

"  It  is  good,"  replied  the  king  ;  "  to-morrow  we  will  expect 
your  reply." 

Philip  and  Krantz  took  their  leave,  and  on  their  return  to 
the  cabin,  found  that  the  king  had  sent  them,  as  a  present, 
two  complete  Mohammedan  dresses,  with  turbans.  These 
were  welcome,  for  their  own  garments  were  sanly  tattered, 
and  very  unfit  for  exposure  to  the  burning  sun  of  those  climes. 
Their  peaked  hats,  too,  collected  the  rays  of  heat,  which  were 
intolerable  ;  and  they  gladly  exchanged  them  for  the  white 
turban.  Secreting  their  money  in  the  Malayan  sash,  which 
formed  a  part  of  the  attire,  they  soon  robed  themselves  in 
257  R 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  native  garments,  the  comfort  of  which  was  immediately 
acknowledged.  After  a  long  consultation  it  was  decided 
that  they  should  accept  the  terms  offered  by  the  king,  as  this 
was  the  only  feasible  way  by  which  Philip  could  hope  to  re- 
obtain  possession  of  Amine.  Their  consent  was  communicated 
to  the  king  on  the  following  day,  and  every  preparation  was 
made  for  the  expedition. 

And  now  was  to  be  beheld  a  scene  of  bustle  and  activity. 
Hundreds  and  hundreds  of  peroquas  of  every  dimension, 
floating  close  to  the  beach,  side  by  side,  formed  a  raft  extend- 
ing nearly  half  a  mile  on  the  smooth  water  of  the  bay,  teeming 
with  men,  who  were  equipping  them  for  the  service  :  some 
were  fitting  the  sails  ;  others  were  carpentering  where  required ; 
the  major  portion  were  sharpening  their  swords  and  preparing 
the  deadly  poison  of  the  pine-apple  for  their  creezes.  The 
beach  was  a  scene  of  confusion :  water  in  jars,  bags  of  rice, 
vegetables,  salt-fish,  fowls  in  coops  were  everywhere  strewed 
about  among  the  armed  natives,  who  were  obeying  the  orders 
of  the  chiefs,  who  themselves  walked  up  and  down,  dressed 
in  their  gayest  apparel,  and  glittering  in  their  arms  and 
ornaments.  The  king  had  six  long  brass  four- pounders, 
a  present  from  an  Indian  captain  ;  these,  with  a  propor- 
tionate quantity  of  shot  and  cartridges,  were  (under  the 
direction  of  Philip  and  Krantz)  fitted  on  some  of  the  largest 
peroquas,  and  some  of  the  natives  were  instructed  how  to 
use  them.  At  first  the  king,  who  fully  expected  the  re- 
duction of  the  Portuguese  fort,  stated  his  determination  to 
go  in  person  ;  but  in  this  he  was  overruled  by  his  confidential 
advisers,  and  by  the  request  of  Philip,  who  could  not  allow 
him  to  expose  his  valuable  life.  In  ten  days  all  was  ready, 
and  the  fleet,  manned  by  seven  thousand  men,  made  sail 
for  the  island  of  Tidore.^ 

It  was  a  beautiful  sight  to  behold  the  blue  rippling  sea, 
covered  with  nearly  six  hundred  of  these  picturesque  craft, 
all  under  sail,  and  darting  through  the  water  like  dolphins 
in  pursuit  of  prey  :  all  crowded  with  natives,  whose  white 
dresses  formed  a  lively  contrast  with  the  deep  blue  of  the 
water.  The  large  peroquas,  in  which  were  Philip  and 
Krantz,  with  the  native  commanders,  were  gaily  decorated 
with  streamers  and  pennons  of  all  colours,  that  flowed  out 
and  snapped  with  the  fresh  breeze.  It  aopeared  rather  to 
258 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

be  an  expedition  of  mirth  and  merriment  than  one  which  was 
proceeding  to  bloodshed  and  slaughter. 

On  the  evening  of  the  second  day  they  had  made  the 
island  of  Tidore,  and  run  down  to  within  a  few  miles  of  the 
Portuguese  factory  and  fort.  The  natives  of  the  country, 
who  disliked  though  they  feared  to  disobey  the  Portuguese, 
had  quitted  their  huts  near  the  beach,  and  retired  into  the 
woods.  The  fleet,  therefore,  anchored  and  lay  near  the  beach, 
without  molestation,  during  the  night.  The  next  morning 
Philip  and  Krantz  proceeded  to  reconnoitre. 

The  fort  and  factory  of  Tidore  were  built  upon  the  same 
principle  as  almost  all  the  Portuguese  defences  in  those  seas. 
An  outer  fortification,  consisting  of  a  ditch  with  strong  pali- 
sades embedded  in  masonry,  surrounded  the  factory  and  all 
the  houses  of  the  establishment.  The  gates  of  the  outer  wall 
were  open  all  day  for  ingress  and  egress,  and  closed  only  ut 
night.  On  the  seaward  side  of  this  enclosure  was  what  may 
be  termed  the  citadel,  or  real  fortification  ;  it  was  built  of  solid 
masonry,  with  parapets,  was  surrounded  by  a  deep  ditch,  and 
was  only  accessible  by  a  drawbridge,  mounted  with  cannon 
on  every  side.  Its  real  strength,  however,  could  not  be  well 
perceived,  as  it  was  hidden  by  the  high  palisading  which  sur- 
rounded the  whole  establishment.  After  a  careful  survey, 
Philip  recommended  that  the  large  peroquas  with  the  cannon 
should  attack  by  sea,  while  the  men  of  the  small  vessels  should 
land  and  surround  the  fort,  taking  advantage  of  every  shelter 
which  was  afforded  them  to  cover  themselves  while  they 
harassed  the  enemy  with  their  matchlocks,  arrows,  and  spears. 
This  plan  having  been  approved  of,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
peroquas  made  sail ;  the  others  were  hauled  on  the  beach, 
and  the  men  belonging  to  them  proceeded  by  land. 

But  the  Portuguese  had  been  warned  of  their  approach, 
and  were  fully  prepared  to  receive  them  ;  the  guns  mounted 
to  the  seaward  were  of  heavy  calibre  and  well  served.  The 
guns  of  the  peroquas.  though  rendered  as  effectual  as  they 
could  be,  under  the  direction  of  Philip,  were  small,  and  did 
little  damage  to  the  thick  stone  front  of  the  fort.  After  an 
engagement  of  four  hours,  during  which  the  Ternate  people  lost 
a  great  number  of  men,  the  peroquas,  by  the  advice  of  Philip 
and  Krantz,  hauled  off,  and  returned  to  where  the  remainder 
of  the  fleet  was  stationed ;  and  another  council  of  war  was 
209 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

held.  The  force  which  had  surrounded  the  fort  on  the  land 
side,  was,  however,  not  withdrawn,  as  it  cut  off  any  supplies 
or  assistance  ;  and  at  the  same  time  occasionally  brought  down 
any  of  the  Portuguese  who  might  expose  themselves — a  point 
of  no  small  importance,  as  Philip  well  knew,  with  a  garrison 
so  small  as  that  in  the  fort. 

That  they  could  not  take  the  fort  by  means  of  their  cannon 
was  evident ;  on  the  sea  side  it  was  for  them  impregnable ; 
their  efforts  must  now  be  directed  to  the  land.  Krantz,  after 
the  native  chiefs  had  done  speaking,  advised  that  they  should 
wait  until  dark,  and  then  proceed  to  the  attack  in  the  follow- 
ing way.  When  the  breeze  set  along  shore,  which  it  would 
do  in  the  evening,  he  proposed  that  the  men  should  prepare 
large  bundles  of  dry  palmetto  and  cocoa-nut  leaves  ;  that  they 
should  carry  their  bundles  and  stack  them  against  the  pali- 
sades to  windward,  and  then  set  fire  to  them.  They  would 
thus  burn  down  the  palisades,  and  gain  an  entrance  into  the 
outer  fortification ;  after  which  they  could  ascertain  in  what 
manner  they  should  next  proceed.  This  advice  was  too 
judicious  not  to  be  followed.  All  the  men  who  had  not 
matchlocks  were  set  to  collect  fagots;  a  large  quantity  of 
dry  wood  was  soon  got  together,  and  before  night  they  were 
ready  for  the  second  attack. 

The  white  dresses  of  the  Ternates  were  laid  aside :  with 
nothing  on  them  but  their  belts,  and  scimitars,  and  creezes, 
and  blue  under-drawers,  they  silently  crept  up  to  the  palisades, 
there  deposited  their  fagots,  and  then  again  returned,  again  to 
perform  the  same  journey.  As  the  breastwork  of  fagots  in- 
creased, so  did  they  more  boldly  walk  up,  until  the  pile  was 
completed ;  they  then,  with  a  loud  shout,  fired  it  in  several 
places.  The  flames  mounted,  the  cannon  of  the  fort  roared, 
and  many  fell  under  the  discharges  of  grape  and  hand-grenade. 
But  stifled  by  the  smoke,  which  poured  in  volumes  upon  them, 
the  people  in  the  fort  were  soon  compelled  to  quit  the  ram- 
parts to  avoid  suffocation.  The  palisades  were  on  fire,  and  the 
flames  mounting  in  the  air,  swept  over,  and  began  to  attack 
the  factory  and  houses.  No  resistance  was  now  offered,  and 
the  Ternates  tore  down  the  burning  palisades,  and  forced  their 
way  into  the  entrenchment, and  with  their  scimitars  and  creezes 
put  to  death  all  who  had  been  so  unfortunate  as  not  to  take 
refuge  in  the  citadel.  These  were  chiefly  native  servants. 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

whom  the  attack  had  surprised,  and  for  whose  lives  the 
Portuguese  seemed  to  care  but  little,  for  they  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  their  cries  to  lower  the  drawbridge  and  admit  them 
into  the  fort. 

The  factory,  built  of  stone,  and  all  the  other  houses  were 
on  fire,  and  the  island  was  lighted  up  for  miles.  The  smoke 
had  cleared  away,  and  the  defences  of  the  fort  were  now 
plainly  visible  in  the  broad  glare  of  the  flames.  "  If  we  had 
scaling-ladders,"  cried  Philip,  "  the  fort  would  be  ours ;  there 
is  not  a  soul  on  the  ramparts." 

"  True,  true,"  replied  Krantz,  "  but  even  as  it  is,  the  factory 
walls  will  prove  an  advantageous  post  for  us  after  the  fire  is 
extinguished  ;  if  we  occupy  it,  we  can  prevent  them  showing 
themselves  while  the  ladders  are  constructing.  To-morrow 
night  we  may  have  them  ready,  and  having  first  smoked  the 
fort  with  a  few  more  fagots,  we  may  afterwards  mount  the 
walls  and  carry  the  place." 

"  That  will  do,"  replied  Philip,  as  he  walked  away.  He 
then  joined  the  native  chiefs,  who  were  collected  together 
outside  of  the  entrenchment,  and  communicated  to  them  his 
plans.  When  he  had  made  known  his  views,  and  the  chiefs 
had  assented  to  them,  Schriften,  who  had  come  with  the  ex- 
pedition unknown  to  Philip,  made  his  appearance. 

"  That  won't  do  ;  you'll  never  take  that  fort,  Philip  Vander- 
decken.  He  !  he  ! "  cried  Schriften. 

Hardly  had  he  said  the  words,  when  a  tremendous  explosion 
took  place,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  large  stones,  which  flew 
and  fell  in  every  direction,  killing  and  maiming  hundreds. 
It  was  the  factory  which  had  blown  up,  for  in  its  vaults  there 
was  a  large  quantity  of  gunpowder,  to  which  the  fire  had 
communicated. 

"  So  ends  that  scheme,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken.  He  !  he  !  " 
screamed  Schriften ;  "  you'll  never  take  that  fort." 

The  loss  of  life  and  confusion  caused  by  this  unexpected 
result  occasioned  a  panic,  and  all  the  Ternate  people  fled 
down  to  the  beach  where  their  peroquas  were  lying. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Philip  and  their  chiefs  attempted  to 
rally  them.  Unaccustomed  to  the  terrible  effects  of  gun- 
powder in  any  large  quantities,  they  believed  that  something 
supernatural  had  occurred,  and  many  of  them  jumped  into 
the  peroquas  and  made  sail,  while  the  remainder  were  con- 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

fused,  trembling,  and  panting,  all  huddled  together  on  the 
beach. 

"You'll  never  take  that  fort,  Mynheer  Vanderdecken," 
screamed  the  well-known  voice. 

Philip  raised  his  sword  to  cleave  the  little  man  in  two, 
but  he  let  it  fall  again.  "  I  fear  he  tells  an  unwelcome 
truth,"  thought  Philip,  « but  why  should  I  take  his  life  for 
that  ?  " 

Some  few  of  the  Ternate  chiefs  still  kept  up  their  courage, 
but  the  major  part  were  as  much  alarmed  as  their  people. 
After  some  consultation  it  was  agreed  that  the  army  should 
remain  where  it  was  till  the  next  morning,  when  they  should 
finally  decide  what  to  do. 

When  the  day  dawned,  now  that  the  Portuguese  fort  was 
no  longer  surrounded  by  the  other  buildings,  they  perceived 
that  it  was  more  formidable  than  they  had  at  first  supposed. 
The  ramparts  were  filled  with  men,  and  they  were  bringing 
cannon  to  bear  on  the  Ternate  forces.  Philip  had  a  consulta- 
tion with  Krantz,  and  both  acknowledged  that,  with  the 
present  panic,  nothing  more  could  be  done.  The  chiefs  were 
of  the  same  opinion,  and  orders  were  given  for  the  return  of 
the  expedition  ;  indeed,  the  Ternate  chiefs  were  fully  satisfied 
with  their  success:  they  had  destroyed  the  large  fort,  the 
factory,  and  all  the  Portuguese  buildings  ;  a  small  fortification 
only  was  uninjured  ;  that  was  built  of  stone,  and  inaccessible, 
and  they  knew  that  the  report  of  what  had  been  done  would 
be  taken  and  acknowledged  by  the  king  as  a  great  victory. 
The  order  was,  therefore,  given  for  embarkation,  and  in  two 
hours  the  whole  fleet,  after  a  loss  of  about  seven  hundred 
men,  was  again  on  its  way  to  Ternate.  Krantz  and  Philip 
this  time  embarked  in  the  same  peroqua,  that  they  might 
have  the  pleasure  of  each  other's  conversation.  They  had 
not,  however,  sailed  above  three  hours,  when  it  fell  calm,  and 
towards  the  evening  there  was  every  prospect  of  bad  weather. 
When  the  breeze  again  sprang  up  it  was  from  an  adverse 
quarter,  but  these  vessels  steer  so  close  to  the  wind  that  this 
was  disregarded  ;  by  midnight,  however,  the  wind  had  in- 
creased to  a  gale,  and  before  they  were  clear  of  the  NE. 
headland  of  Tidore  it  blew  a  hurricane,  and  many  were  washed 
off  into  the  sea  from  the  different  craft,  and  those  who  could 
not  swim  sank  and  were  drowned.  The  sails  were  lov/cred, 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

and  the  vessels  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  wind  and  waves, 
every  sea  washing  over  them.  The  fleet  was  drifting  fast  on 
the  shore,  and  before  morning  dawned,  the  vessel  in  which 
were  Philip  and  Krantz  was  among  the  rollers  on  the  beach 
off  the  northern  end  of  the  island.  In  a  short  time  she  was 
dashed  to  pieces,  and  every  one  had  to  look  out  for  himself. 
Philip  and  Krantz  laid  hold  of  one  fragment,  and  were  sup- 
ported by  it  till  they  gained  the  shore  ;  here  they  found  about 
thirty  more  companions,  who  had  suffered  the  same  fate  as 
themselves.  When  the  day  dawned  they  perceived  that  the 
major  part  of  the  fleet  had  weathered  the  point,  and  that 
those  who  had  not  would,  in  all  probability,  escape,  as  the 
wind  had  moderated. 

The  Ternate  people  proposed  that,  as  they  were  well  armed, 
they  should,  as  soon  as  the  weather  moderated,  launch  some 
of  the  craft  belonging  to  the  islanders,  and  join  the  fleet ;  but 
Philip,  who  had  been  consulting  with  Krantz,  considered  this 
a  good  opportunity  for  ascertaining  the  fate  of  Amine.  As 
the  Portuguese  could  prove  nothing  against  them,  they  could 
either  deny  that  they  had  been  among  the  assailants,  or  might 
plead  that  they  had  been  forced  to  join  them.  At  all  risks 
Philip  was  determined  to  remain,  and  Krantz  agreed  to  share 
his  fate ;  and  seeming  to  agree  with  them,  they  allowed  the 
Ternate  people  to  walk  to  the  Tidore  peroquas,  and  while 
they  were  launching  them  Philip  and  Krantz  fell  back  into 
the  jungle  and  disappeared.  The  Portuguese  had  perceived 
the  wreck  of  their  enemies,  and,  irritated  by  the  loss  they 
had  sustained,  they  had  ordered  the  people  of  the  island  to 
go  out  and  capture  all  who  were  driven  on  shore.  Now  that 
they  were  no  longer  assailed,  the  Tidore  people  obeyed  them, 
and  very  soon  fell  in  with  Philip  and  Krantz,  who  had  quietly 
sat  down  under  the  shade  of  a  large  tree,  waiting  the  issue. 
They  were  led  away  to  the  fort,  where  they  arrived  at  night- 
fall. They  were  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the  com- 
mandant, the  same  little  man  who  had  made  love  to  Amine, 
and  as  they  were  dressed  in  Mussulman's  attire,  he  was  about 
to  order  them  to  be  hung,  when  Philip  told  him  that  they 
were  Dutchmen,  who  had  been  wrecked,  and  forced  by  the 
king  of  Ternate  to  join  his  expedition  ;  that  they  had  taken 
the  earliest  opportunity  of  escaping,  as  was  very  evident, 
since  those  who  had  been  thrown  on  shore  with  them  had 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

got  off  in  the  island  boats,  while  they  chose  to  remain. 
Whereupon  the  little  Portuguese  commandant  struck  his 
sword  firm  down  on  the  pavement  of  the  ramparts,  looked 
very  big,  and  then  ordered  them  to  prison  for  further  exa- 
mination. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

As  every  one  descants  upon  the  want  of  comfort  in  a  prison, 
it  is  to  be  presumed  that  there  are  no  very  comfortable  ones. 
Certainly  that  to  which  Philip  and  Krantz  were  ushered  had 
anything  rather  than  the  air  of  an  agreeable  residence.  It  was 
under  the  fort,  with  a  very  small  aperture,  looking  towards  the 
sea,  for  light  and  air.  It  was  very  hot,  and  moreover  destitute 
of  all  those  little  conveniences  which  add  so  much  to  one's 
happiness  in  modern  houses  and  hotels.  In  fact,  it  consisted 
of  four  bare  walls  and  a  stone  floor,  and  that  was  all. 

Philip,  who  wished  to  make  some  inquiries  relative  to 
Amine,  addressed,  in  Portuguese,  the  soldier  who  brought 
them  down. 

"  My  good  friend,  I  beg  your  pardon " 

"  I  beg  yours,"  replied  the  soldier,  going  out  of  the  door, 
and  locking  them  in. 

Philip  leant  gloomily  against  the  wall  ;  Krantz,  more 
mercurial,  walked  up  and  down,  three  steps  each  way  and 
turn. 

"Do  you  know  what  I  am  thinking  of?"  observed  Krantz, 
after  a  pause  in  his  walk.  "  It  is  very  fortunate  that  (lowering 
his  voice)  we  have  all  our  doubloons  about  us  ;  if  they  don't 
search  us,  we  may  get  away  by  bribing." 

"  And  I  was  thinking,"  replied  Philip,  "  that  I  would  sooner 
be  here  than  in  company  with  that  wretch  Schriften,  whose 
sight  is  poison  to  me." 

"  I  did  not  much  admire  the  appearance  of  the  commandant; 
but  I  suppose  we  shall  know  more  to-morrow." 

Here  they  were  interrupted  by  the  turning  of  the  key  and 
the  entrance  of  a  soldier  with  a  chatty  of  water  and  a  large 
dish  of  boiled  rice.  He  was  not  the  man  who  had  brought 
them  to  the  dungeon,  and  Philip  accosted  him. 

"You  have  had  hard  work  within  these  last  two  days?" 
264 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"Yes,  indeed,  signer." 

"  The  natives  forced  us  to  join  the  expedition,  and  we 
escaped." 

"  So  I  heard  you  say,  signor." 

"  They  lost  nearly  a  thousand  men,"  said  Krantz. 

"  Holy  St.  Francis  !  I  am  glad  of  it." 

"They  will  be  careful  how  they  attack  Portuguese  in  a 
hurry,  I  expect,"  rejoined  Krantz. 

"  I  think  so,"  replied  the  soldier. 

"  Did  you  lose  many  men  ? "  ventured  Philip,  perceiving 
that  the  man  was  loquacious. 

"  Not  4;en  of  our  own  people.  In  the  factory  there  were 
about  a  hundred  of  the  natives,  with  some  women  and  chil- 
dren ;  but  that  is  of  no  consequence." 

"  You  had  a  young  European  woman  here,  I  understand," 
said  Philip,  with  anxiety;  "one  who  was  wrecked  in  a  vessel 
- — was  she  among  those  who  were  lost  ?" 

"Young  woman! — Holy  St.  Francis.  Yes,  now  I  recollect. 
Why,  the  fact  is— 

"  Pedro  ! "  called  a  voice  from  above  ;  the  man  stopped, 
put  his  fingers  to  his  lips,  went  out,  and  locked  the  door. 

"God  of  Heaven,  give  me  patience!"  cried  Philip;  "but 
this  is  too  trying." 

"  He  will  be  down  here  again  to-morrow  morning,"  observed 
Krantz. 

"  Yes  !  to-morrow  morning  ;  but  what  an  endless  time  will 
suspense  make  of  the  intervening  hours  !  " 

"  I  feel  for  you,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "but  what  can  be  done  ? 
The  hours  must  pass,  though  suspense  draws  them  out  into 
interminable  years ;  but  I  hear  footsteps." 

Again  the  door  was  unlocked,  and  the  first  soldier  made 
his  appearance.  "  Follow  me — the  commandant  would  speak 
with  you." 

This  unexpected  summons  was  cheerfully  complied  with 
by  Philip  and  his  companion.  They  walked  up  the  narrow 
Stone  steps,  and  at  last  found  themselves  in  a  small  room  in 
presence  of  the  commandant,  with  whom  our  readers  have 
been  already  made  acquainted.  He  was  lolling  on  a  small 
sofa,  his  long  sword  lay  on  the  table  before  him,  and  two 
young  native  women  were  fanning  him,  one  at  his  head,  and 
the  other  at  his  feet. 

265 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Where  did  you  get  those  dresses  ? "  was  the  first  inter- 
rogatory. 

"The  natives,  when  they  brought  us  prisoners  from  the 
island  on  which  we  saved  ourselves,  took  away  our  clothes, 
and!  gave  us  these  as  a  present  from  their  king." 

"  And  engaged  you  to  serve  in  their  fleet,  in  the  attack  on 
this  fort?" 

"They  forced  us,"  replied  Krantz ;  "for  as  there  was 
no  war  between  our  nations,  we  objected  to  this  service  : 
notwithstanding  which,  they  put  us  on  board,  to  make 
the  common  people  believe  that  they  were  assisted  by 
Europeans." 

"  How  am  I  to  know  the  truth  of  this  ?" 

"  You  have  our  word  in  the  first  place,  and  our  escape  from 
them  in  the  second." 

"  You  belonged  to  a  Dutch  East-Indiaman.  Are  you  officers 
or  common  seamen  ?  " 

Krantz,  who  considered  that  they  were  less  likely  to  be 
detained  if  they  concealed  their  rank  on  board,  gave  Philip  a 
slight  touch  with  his  finger,  as  he  replied,  "  We  are  inferior 
officers.  I  was  third  mate  and  this  man  was  pilot" 

"  And  your  captain,  where  is  he  ?  " 

"  I — I  cannot  say  whether  he  is  alive  or  dead." 

"  Had  you  no  woman  on  board  ?  " 

"  Yes  !  the  captain  had  his  wife." 

"  What  has  become  of  her  ?  " 

"  She  is  supposed  to  have  perished  on  a  portion  of  the  raft 
which  broke  adrift" 

"  Ha ! "  replied  the  commandant,  who  remained  silent  for 
some  time. 

Philip  looked  at  Krantz,  as  much  as  to  say,  "Why  all  this 
subterfuge  ?  "  But  Krantz  gave  him  a  signal  to  leave  him  to 
speak. 

"  You  say  you  don't  know  whether  your  captain  is  alive  or 
dead  ? " 

"  I  do." 

"  Now,  suppose  I  was  to  give  you  your  liberty,  would  you 
have  any  objection  to  sign  a  paper,  stating  his  death,  and 
swearing  to  the  truth  of  it  ?  " 

Philip  stared  at  the  commandant,  and  then  at  Krantz. 

"  I  see  no  objection,  exactly ;  except  that  if  it  were  sent 
266 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

home  to  Holland  we  might  get  into  trouble.      May  I  ask, 
Signer  Commandant,  why  you  wish  for  sucli  a  paper  ?  " 

"  No  ! "  roared  the  little  man,  in  a  voice  like  thunder.  "  I 
will  give  no  reason,  but  that  I  wish  it ;  that  is  enough ;  take 
your  choice — the  dungeon,  or  liberty  and  a  passage  by  the 
first  vessel  that  calls." 

"  I  don't  doubt — in  fact — I'm  sure,  he  must  be  dead  by  this 
time,"  replied  Krantz,  drawling  out  the  words  in  a  musing 
manner.  "  Commandant,  will  you  give  us  till  to-morrow 
morning  to  make  our  calculations  ?  " 

"  Yes,  you  may  go." 

"  But  not  to  the  dungeon,  commandant,"  replied  Krantz  : 
"  we  are  not  prisoners,  certainly  ;  and  if  you  wish  us  to  do 
you  a  favour,  surely  you  will  not  ill-treat  us  ?  " 

'"  By  your  own  acknowledgment  you  have  taken  up  arms 
against  the  most  Christian  king;  however,  you  may  remain 
at  liberty  for  the  night — to-morrow  morning  will  decide 
whether  or  no  you  are  prisoners." 

Philip  and  Krantz  thanked  the  little  commandant  for  his 
kindness,  and  then  hastened  away  to  the  ramparts.  It  was 
now  dark,  and  the  moon  had  not  yet  made  her  appearance. 
They  sat  there  on  the  parapet,  enjoying  the  breeze,  and 
feeling  the  delight  of  liberty  even  after  their  short  incarcera- 
tion ;  but,  near  to  them,  soldiers  were  either  standing  or 
lying,  and  they  spoke  but  in  whispers. 

"  What  could  he  mean  by  requiring  us  to  give  a  certificate 
of  the  captain's  death  ;  and  why  did  you  answer  as  you  did  ?  " 

"  Philip  Vanderdecken,  that  I  have  often  thought  of  the  fate 
of  your  beautiful  wife,  you  may  imagine ;  and  when  I  heard 
that  she  was  brought  here  I  trembled  for  her.  What  must 
she  appear,  lovely  as  she  is,  when  placed  in  comparison  with 
the  women  of  this  country  ?  And  that  little  commandant — is 
he  not  the  very  person  who  would  be  taken  with  her  charms  ? 
I  denied  our  condition,  because  I  thought  he  would  be  more 
likely  to  allow  us  our  liberty  as  humble  individuals  than  as 
captain  and  first  mate  ;  particularly  as  he  suspects  that  we  led 
on  the  Ternate  people  to  the  attack  ;  and  when  he  asked  for 
a  certificate  of  your  death,  I  immediately  imagined  that  he 
wanted  it  in  order  to  induce  Amine  to  marry  him.  But  where 
is  she  ?  is  the  question.  If  we  could  only  find  out  that  soldier, 
we  might  gain  some  information." 
267 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  Depend  upon  it,  she  is  here,"  replied  Philip,  clenching 
his  hands. 

"  I  am  inclined  to  think  so,"  said  Krantz ;  "  that  she  is 
alive  I  feel  assured." 

The  conversation  was  continued  until  the  moon  rose,  and 
threw  her  beams  over  the  tumbling  waters.  Philip  and  Krantz 
turned  their  faces  towards  the  sea,  and  leant  over  the  battle- 
ments in  silence;  after  some  time  their  reveries  were  disturbed 
by  a  person  coming  up  to  them  with  a  "  Buenos  nudes,  sigtior." 

Krantz  immediately  recognised  the  Portuguese  soldier, 
whose  conversation  with  him  had  been  interrupted. 

"  Good  night,  my  friend  !  We  thank  Heaven  that  you 
have  no  longer  to  turn  the  key  upon  us." 

"Yes,  I'm  surprised!"  replied  the  soldier,  in  a  low  tone. 
"  Our  commandant  is  fond  of  exercising  his  power ;  he  rules 
here  without  appeal,  that  I  can  tell  you." 

"  He  is  not  within  hearing  of  us  now,"  replied  Krantz.  "  It 
is  a  lovely  spot  this  to  live  in !  How  long  have  you  been  in 
this  country  ?  " 

"  Now  thirteen  years,  signer,  and  I'm  tired  of  it.  I  have  a 
wife  and  children  in  Oporto — that  is,  I  had — but  whether 
they  are  alive  or  dead,  who  can  tell  ?  " 

"  Do  you  expect  to  return  and  see  them  ?  " 

"  Return,  siguor!  no  Portuguese  soldier  like  me  ever  returns. 
We  are  enlisted  for  five  years,  and  we  lay  our  bones  here." 

"  That  is  hart!  indeed." 

"  Hard,  signer,"  replied  the  soldier  in  a  low  whisper ;  "  it  is 
cruel  and  treacherous.  I  have  often  thought  of  putting  the 
muzzle  of  my  arquebuse  to  my  head ;  but  while  there's  life 
there's  hope." 

"  I  pity  you,  my  good  fellow,"  rejoined  Krantz  ;  "  look  you, 
I  have  two  gold  pieces  left — take  one ;  you  may  be  able  to 
send  it  home  to  your  poor  wife." 

"  And  here  is  one  of  mine,  too,  my  good  fellow,"  added 
Philip,  putting  another  in  his  hand. 

"  Now,  may  all  the  saints  preserve  you,  signers,"  replied 
the  soldier,  "  for  it  is  the  first  act  of  kindness  shown  to  me 
for  many  years — not  that  my  wife  and  children  have  much 
chance  of  ever  receiving  it." 

"  You  were  speaking  about  a  young  European  woman  when 
we  were  in  the  dungeon/  observed  Krantz,  after  a  pause. 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"Yes,  signer,  she  was  a  very  beautiful  creature.  Our 
commandant  was  very  much  in  love  with  her." 

"  Where  is  she  now  ?  " 

"She  went  away  to  Goa,  in  company  with  a  priest  who 
knew  her,  Father  Mathias,  a  good  old  man;  he  gave  me 
absolution  when  he  was  here." 

"  Father  Mathias ! "  exclaimed  Philip ;  but  a  touch  from 
Krantz  checked  him. 

"  You  say  the  commandant  loved  her  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes :  the  little  man  was  quite  mad  about  her ;  and 
had  it  not  been  for  the  arrival  of  Father  Mathias,  he  would 
never  have  let  her  go,  that  I'm  sure  of,  although  she  was 
another  man's  wife." 

"  Sailed  for  Goa,  you  said  ?  " 

n  Yes,  in  a  ship  which  called  here.  She  must  have  been 
very  glad  to.  have  got  away,  for  our  little  commandant  perse- 
cuted her  all  day  long,  and  she  evidently  was  grieving  for  her 
husband.  Do  you  know,  signers,  if  her  husband  is  alive  ?  " 

"  No,  we  do  not ;  we  have  heard  nothing  of  him." 

"  Well,  if  he  is,  I  hope  he  will  not  come  here  ;  for  should 
the  commandant  have  him  in  his  power  it  would  go  hard  with 
him.  He  is  a  man  who  sticks  at  nothing.  He  is  a  brave  little 
fellow,  that  cannot  be  denied  ;  but  to  get  possession  of  that 
lady,  he  would  remove  all  obstacles  at  any  risk — and  a  husband 
is  a  very  serious  one,  signors.  Well,  signors,"  continued  the 
soldier,  after  a  pause,  "  I  had  better  not  be  seen  here  too 
long ;  you  may  command  me  if  you  want  anything ;  recol- 
lect my  name  is  Pedro — good  night  to  you,  and  a  thousand 
thanks,"  and  the  soldier  walked  away. 

"We  have  made  one  friend,  at  all  events,"  said  Krantz, 
"and  we  have  gained  information  of  no  little  importance." 

"  Most  important,"  replied  Philip.  "  Amine,  then,  lias 
sailed  for  Goa  with  Father  Mathias  !  I  feel  that  she  is  safe, 
and  in  good  hands.  He  is  an  excellent  man,  that  Father 
Mathias — my  mind  is  relieved." 

"  Yes,  but  recollect  you  are  in  the  hands  of  your  enemy. 
We  must  leave  this  place  as  quickly  as  we  can — to-morrow  we 
must  sign  the  paper.  It  is  of  little  consequence,  as  we  shall 
probably  be  at  Goa  before  it  arrives ;  and  even  if  we  are  not, 
the  news  of  your  ueath  •would  not  occasion  Amine  to  marry 
this  withered  piece  of  mortality." 
269 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"That  I  feel  assured  of;  but  it  may  cause  her  great 
suffering." 

"  Not  worse  than  her  present  suspense,  believe  me,  Philip  ; 
but  it  is  useless  canvassing  the  past — it  must  be  done.  I 
shall  sign  as  Cornelius  Richter — our  third  mate  ;  you,  as  Jacob 
Van  treat — recollect  that." 

"Agreed,"  replied  Philip,  who  then  turned  away,  as  if  will- 
ing to  be  left  to  his  own  thoughts.  Krantz  perceived  it,  and 
Jay  down  under  the  embrasure,  and  was  soon  fast  asleep. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

TlRED  out  with  the  fatigue  of  the  day  before,  Philip  had 
laid  himself  down  by  Krantz  and  fallen  asleep  ;  early  the  next 
morning  he  was  awakened  by  the  sound  of  the  commandant's 
voice,  and  his  long  sword  rattling  as  usual  on  the  pavement. 
He  rose,  and  found  the  little  man  rating  the  soldiers — threat- 
ening some  with  the  dungeons,  others  with  extra  duty. 
Krantz  was  also  on  his  feet  before  the  commandant  had 
finished  his  morning's  lecture.  At  last,  perceiving  them, 
in  a  stern  voice  he  ordered  them  to  follow  him  into  his  apart- 
ment. They  did  so,  and  the  commandant,  throwing  himself 
upon  his  sofa,  inquired  whether  they  were  ready  to  sign  the 
required  paper,  or  go  back  to  the  dungeon.  Krantz  replied 
that  they  had  been  calculating  chances,  and  that  they  were, 
in  consequence,  so  perfectly  convinced  of  the  death  of  their 
captain  that  they  were  willing  to  sign  any  paper  to  that  effect ; 
at  which  reply  the  commandant  immediately  became  very 
gracious,  and  having  called  for  materials,  he  wrote  out  the 
document,  which  was  duly  subscribed  to  by  Krantz  and  Philip. 
As  soon  as  they  had  signed  it,  and  he  had  it  in  his  possession, 
the  little  man  was  so  pleased  that  he  requested  them  to  par- 
take of  his  breakfast. 

During  the  repast,  he  promised  that  they  should  leave  the 
island  by  the  first  opportunity.  Although  Philip  was  taciturn, 
yet,  as  Krantz  made  himself  very  agreeable,  the  commandant 
invited  them  to  dinner.  Krantz,  as  they  became  more  familiar, 
informed  him  that  they  had  each  a  few  pieces  of  gold,  and 
wished  to  be  allowed  a  room  where  they  could  keep  their 
270 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

table.  Whether  it  was  the  want  of  society,  or  the  desire  of 
obtaining  the  gold,  probably  both,  the  commandant  offered 
that  they  should  join  his  table,  and  pay  their  proportion  of 
the  expenses ;  a  proposal  which  was  gladly  acceded  to.  The 
terms  were  arranged,  and  Krantz  insisted  upon  putting  down 
the  first  week's  payment  in  advance.  From  that  moment  the 
commandant  was  the  best  of  friends  with  them,  and  did 
nothing  but  caress  those  whom  he  had  so  politely  shoved  into 
a  dungeon  below  water.  It  was  on  the  evening  of  the  third 
day,  as  they  were  smoking  their  Manilla  cheroots,  that  Krantz, 
perceiving  the  commandant  in  a  peculiarly  good  humour, 
ventured  to  ask  him  why  he  was  so  anxious  for  a  certificate 
of  the  captain's  death  ;  and  in  reply  was  informed,  much  to 
the  astonishment  of  Philip,  that  Amine  had  agreed  to  marry 
him  upon  his  producing  such  a  document. 

"  Impossible  !  "  cried  Philip,  starting  from  his  seat. 
.  "  Impossible,   signor — and   why   impossible  ?  "    replied   the 
commandant,  curling  his  mustachios  with  his  fingers,  with  a 
surprised  and  angry  air. 

"  I  should  have  said  impossible  too, '  interrupted  Krantz, 
who  perceived  the  consequence  of  Philip's  indiscretion,  "for 
had  you  seen,  commandant,  how  that  woman  doted  upon  her 
husband,  how  she  fondled  him,  you  would  with  us  have  said, 
it  was  impossible  that  she  could  have  transferred  her  affections 
so  soon ;  but  women  are  women,  and  soldiers  have  a  great 
advantage  over  other  people  :  perhaps  she  had  some  excuse, 
commandant. — Here's  your  health,  and  success  to  you." 

"  It  is  exactly  what  I  would  have  said,"  added  Philip, 
acting  upon  Krantz's  plan ;  "  but  she  has  a  great  excuse, 
commandant,  when  I  recollect  her  husband,  and  have  you  in 
my  presence." 

Soothed  with  the  flatter}',  the  commandant  replied,  "  Why, 
yes,  they  say  military  men  are  very  successful  with  the  fair 
sex — I  presume  it  is  because  they  look  up  to  us  for  protection  ; 
and  where  can  they  be  better  assured  of  it  than  with  a  man 
who  wears  a  sword  at  his  thigh  ?  Come,  signers,  we  will 
drink  her  health.  Here's  to  the  beautiful  Amine  Vander- 
decken." 

"  To  the  beautiful  Amine  Vanderdecken  ! "  cried  Krantz, 
tossing  off  his  wine. 

"  To  the  beautiful  Amine  Vanderdecken,"  followed  Philip. 
271 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"But,  commandant,  are  you  not  afraid  to  trust  her  at  Goa, 
where  there  are  so  many  enticements  for  a  woman,  so  many 
allurements  held  out  for  her  sex  ?  " 

"  No,  not  in  the  least — I  am  convinced  that  she  loves  me — 
nay,  between  ourselves,  that  she  dotes  upon  me." 

"Liar!"  exclaimed  Philip. 

"  How,  signor !  is  that  addressed  to  me  ?  "  cried  the  com- 
mandant, seizing  his  sword,  which  lay  on  the  table. 

"No,  no,"  replied  Philip,  recovering  himself;  "it  was  ad- 
dressed to  her.  I  have  heard  her  swear  to  her  husband,  that 
she  would  exist  for  no  other  but  him." 

"Ha!  ha!  is  that  all?"  replied  the  commandant;  "my 
friend,  you  do  not  know  women." 

"  No,  nor  is  he  very  partial  to  them  either,"  replied  Krantz, 
who  then  leant  over  to  the  commandant  and  whispered,  '•  He 
is  always  so  when  you  talk  of  women.  He  was  cruelly  jilted 
once,  and  hates  the  whole  sex." 

"Then  we  must  be  merciful  to  him,"  replied  the  little 
officer;  "suppose  we  change  the  subject." 

When  they  repaired  to  their  own  room,  Krantz  pointed  out  to 
Philip  the  necessity  for  his  commanding  his  feelings,  as  other- 
wise they  would  again  be  immured  in  the  dungeon.  Philip 
acknowledged  his  rashness,  but  pointed  out  to  Krantz  that  the 
circumstance  of  Amine  having  promised  to  marry  the  com- 
mandant, if  he  procured  certain  intelligence  of  his  death,  was 
the  cause  of  his  irritation.  "  Can  it  be  so  ?  Is  it  possible 
that  she  can  have  been  so  false?"  exclaimed  Philip;  "yet  his 
anxiety  to  procure  that  document  seems  to  warrant  the  truth 
of  his  assertion." 

"  I  think,  Philip,  that  in  all  probability  it  is  true,"  replied 
Krantz  carelessly ;  "  but  of  this  you  may  be  assured,  that  she 
has  been  placed  in  a  situation  of  great  peril,  and  has  only  done 
so  to  save  herself  for  your  sake.  When  you  meet,  depend 
upon  it  she  will  fully  prove  to  you  that  necessity  had  compelled 
her  to  deceive  him  in  that  way,  and  that  if  she  had  not  done 
so,  she  would  by  this  time  have  fallen  a  prey  to  his  violence." 

"  It  may  be  so,"  replied  Philip  gravely. 

"  It  is  so,  Philip,  my  life  upon  it.  Do  not  for  a  moment 
harbour  a  thought  so  injurious  to  one  who  lives  but  in  your 
love.  Suspect  that  fond  and  devoted  creature  !  I  blush  for 
you,  Philip  Vanderdecken." 

273 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"You  are  right,  and  I  beg  her  pardon  for  allowing  such 
feelings  or  thoughts  to  have  for  a  moment  overpowered  me," 
responded  Philip ;  "  but  it  is  a  hard  case  for  a  husband  who 
loves  as  I  do  to  hear  his  wife's  name  bandied  about,  and 
her  character  assailed  by  a  contemptible  wretch  like  this 
commandant." 

"  It  is,  I  grant ;  but  still  I  prefer  even  that  to  a  dungeon," 
replied  Krantz,  "  and  so,  good  night." 

For  three  weeks  they  remained  in  the  fort,  every  day 
becoming  more  intimate  with  the  commandant,  who  often 
communicated  with  Krantz  when  Philip  was  not  present, 
turning  his  conversation  upon  his  love  for  Amine,  and  enter- 
ing into  a  minute  detail  of  all  that  had  passed.  Krantz  per- 
ceived that  he  was  right  in  his  opinion,  and  that  Amme  had 
only  been  cajoling  the  commandant,  that  she  might  escape. 
But  the  time  passed  heavily  away  with  Philip  and  Krantz, 
for  no  vessel  made  its  appearance. 

"  When  shall  I  see  her  again  ? "  soliloquised  Philip  one 
morning,  as  he  lolled  over  the  parapet  in  company  with 
Krantz. 

"See  who?"  said  the  commandant,  who  happened  to  be 
at  his  elbow. 

Philip  turned  round  and  stammered  something  unintelli- 
gible. 

"  We  were  talking  of  his  sister,  commandant,"  said  Krantz, 
taking  his  arm  and  leading  him  away.  "  Do  not  mention  the 
subject  to  my  friend,  for  it  is  a  veiy  painful  one,  and  forms 
one  reason  why  he  is  so  inimical  to  the  sex.  She  was  married 
to  his  intimate  friend,  and  ran  away  from  her  husband  :  it 
was  his  only  sister;  and  the  disgrace  broke  his  mother's  heart, 
and  has  made  him  miserable.  Take  no  notice  of  it,  I  beg." 

"  No,  no,  certainly  not ;  I  don't  wonder  at  it :  the  honour 
of  one's  family  is  a  serious  affair,"  replied  the  commandant. 
"  Poor  young  man,  what  with  his  sister's  conduct  and  the 
falsehood  of  his  own  intended,  I  don't  wonder  at  his  being  so 
grave  and  silent.  Is  he  of  a  good  family,  signor  ?  " 

"One  of  the  noblest  in  all  Holland,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "he 
is  heir  to  a  large  property,  and  independent  by  the  fortune  of 
his  mother ;  but  these  two  unfortunate  events  induced  him  to 
quit  the  States  secretly,  and  he  embarked  for  these  countries, 
that  he  might  forget  his  grief." 
873 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

"One  of  the  noblest  families?"  replied  the  commandant. 
"  Then  he  is  under  an  assumed  name — Jacob  Vantreat  is  not 
his  true  name,  of  course." 

"Oh  no,"  replied  Krantz;  "that  it  is  not,  I  assure  you; 
but  my  lips  are  sealed  on  that  point." 

"  Of  course,  except  to  a  friend,  who  can  keep  a  secret.  I 
will  not  ask  it  now.  So  he  is  really  noble  ?  " 

"One  of  the  highest  families  in  the  country,  possessing 
great  wealth  and  influence — allied  to  the  Spanish  nobility  by 
marriage." 

"Indeed!"  rejoined  the  commandant,  musing — "I  daresay 
he  knows  many  of  the  Portuguese  as  well." 

"No  doubt  of  it ;  they  are  all  more  or  less  connected." 

"  He  must  prove  to  you  a  most  valuable  friend,  Signor 
Richter." 

" I  consider  myself  provided  for  for  life  as  soon  as  we  return 
home.  He  is  of  a  very  grateful,  generous  disposition,  as  he 
would  prove  to  you,  should  you  ever  fall  in  with  him  again." 

"  I  have  no  doubt  of  it ;  and  I  can  assure  you  that  I  am 
heartily  tired  of  staying  in  this  country.  Here  I  shall  remain 
probably  for  two  years  more  before  I  am  relieved,  and  then 
shall  have  to  join  my  regiment  at  Goa,  and  not  be  able  to 
obtain  leave  to  return  home  without  resigning  my  commis- 
sion. But  he  is  coming  this  way." 

After  this  conversation  with  Krantz,  the  alteration  in  the 
manner  of  the  Portuguese  commandant,  who  had  the  highest 
respect  for  nobility,  was  most  marked.  He  treated  Philip  with 
a  respect  which  was  observable  to  all  in  the  fort ;  and  which 
was,  until  Krantz  had  explained  the  cause,  a  source  of  astonish- 
ment to  Philip  himself.  The  commandant  often  introduced 
the  subject  to  Krantz,  and  sounded  him  as  to  whether  his 
conduct  towards  Philip  had  been  such  as  to  have  made  a 
favourable  impression ;  for  the  little  man  now  hoped  that, 
through  such  an  influential  channel,  he  might  reap  some 
benefit. 

Some  days  after  this  conversation,  as  they  were  all  three 
seated  at  table,  a  corporal  entered,  and  saluting  the  com- 
mandant, informed  him  that  a  Dutch  sailor  had  arrived  at  the 
fort,  and  wished  to  know  whether  he  should  be  admitted. 
Both  Philip  and  Krantz  turned  pale  at  this  communication  ; 
they  had  a  presentiment  of  evil,  but  they  said  nothing.  The 
274 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

sailor  was  ordered  in,  and  in  a  few  minutes,  Mho  should  make 
his  appearance  but  their  tormentor,  the  one-eyed  Schriften. 
On  perceiving  Philip  and  Krantz  seated  at  the  table,  he  im- 
mediately exclaimed,  "  Oh  !  Captain  Philip  Vanderdecken, 
and  my  good  friend  Mynheer  Krantz,  first  mate  of  the  good 
ship  Utrecht,  I  am  glad  to  meet  you  again." 

"  Captain  Philip  Vanderdecken  !  "  roared  the  commandant, 
as  he  sprang  from  his  chair. 

"  Yes,  that  is  my  captain,  Mynheer  Philip  Vanderdecken  ; 
and  that  is  my  first  mate,  Mynheer  Krantz ;  both  of  the  good 
ship  Utrecht :  we  were  wrecked  together,  were  we  not,  Myn- 
heer ?  He  !  he ! " 

"  Sangue  de — Vanderdecken  !  the  husband  !  Corpo  del 
diavolo — is  it  possible!"  cried  the  commandant,  panting  for 
breath,  as  he  seized  his  long  sword  with  both  hands  and 
clenched  it  with  fury.  "What,  then,  I  have  been  deceived, 
cajoled,  laughed  at ! "  Then,  after  a  pause — the  veins  of  his 
forehead  distending  so  as  almost  to  burst — he  continued,  with 
a  suppressed  voice,  "  Most  noble  sir,  I  thank  you  ;  but  now  it 
is  my  turn. — What,  ho!  there!  Corporal — men,  here,  instantly 
• — quick  !  " 

Philip  and  Krantz  felt  convinced  that  all  denial  was  useless. 
Philip  folded  his  arms  and  made  no  reply.  Krantz  merely 
observed,  "  A  little  reflection  will  prove  to  you,  sir,  that  this 
indignation  is  not  warranted." 

"  Not  warranted  ! "  rejoined  the  commandant  with  a  sneer  ; 
"you  have  deceived  me;  but  you  are  caught  in  your  own  trap. 
I  have  the  paper  signed,  which  I  shall  not  fail  to  make  use 
of.  You  are  dead,  you  know,  captain  ;  I  have  your  own  hand 
to  it,  and  your  wife  will  be  glad  to  believe  it." 

"She  has  deceived  you,  commandant,  to  get  out  of  your 
power,  nothing  more,"  said  Vanderdecken.  "She  would  spurn 
a  contemptible,  withered  wretch  like  yourself,  were  she  as 
free  as  the  wind." 

"  Go  on,  go  on ;  it  will  be  my  turn  soon.  Corporal,  throw 
these  two  men  into  the  dungeon  :  a  sentry  at  the  door  till 
further  orders.  Away  with  them  !  Most  noble  sir,  perhaps 
your  influential  friends  in  Holland  and  Spain  will  enable  you 
to  get  out  again." 

Philip  and  Krantz  were  led  away  by  the  soldiers,  who  were 
very  much  surprised  at  this  change  of  treatment.  Schriften 
275 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

followed  them  ;  and  as  they  walked  across  the  rampart  to  the 
stairs  which  led  to  their  prison,  Krantz,  in  his  fury,  burst  from 
the  soldiers,  and  bestowed  a  kick  upon  Schriften,  which  sent 
him  several  feet  forward  on  his  face. 

"  That  was  a  good  one — -he  !  he  !  "  cried  Schriften,  smiling 
and  looking  at  Krantz  as  he  regained  his  legs. 

There  was  an  eye,  however,  which  met  theirs  with  an  intel- 
ligent glance  as  they  descended  the  stairs  to  the  dungeon.  It 
was  that  of  the  soldier  Pedro.  It  told  them  that  ther.e  was 
one  friend  upon  whom  they  could  rely,  and  who  would  spare 
no  endeavour  to  assist  them  in  their  new  difficulty.  It  was  a 
consolation  to  them  both  ;  a  ray  of  hope  which  cheered  them 
as  they  once  more  descended  the  narrow  steps,  and  heard  the 
heavy  key  turned  which  again  secured  th  m  in  their  dungeon. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

-L  HUS  are  all  our  hopes  wrecked,"  said  Philip  mourn- 
fully ;  "  what  chance  have  we  now  of  escaping  from  this  little 
tyrant  ?  " 

"  Chances  turn  up,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "  at  present  the  pros- 
pect is  not  very  cheering.  Let  us  hope  for  the  best.  I  have 
an  idea  in  my  head  which  may  probably  be  turned  to  some 
account,"  continued  Krantz,  "as  soon  as  the  little  man's  fury 
is  over." 

"  Which  is ' 

"That,  mqch  as  he  likes  your  wife,  there  is  something 
which  he  likes  quite  as  well — money.  Now,  as  we  know 
where  all  the  treasure  is  concealed,  I  think  he  may  be  tempted 
to  offer  us  our  liberty,  if  we  were  to  promise  to  put  it  into 
his  possession." 

"  That  is  not  impossible.  Confound  that  little  malignant 
wretch  Schriften  ;  he  certainly  is  not,  as  you  say,  of  this  world. 
He  has  been  my  persecutor  through  life,  and  appears  to  act 
from  an  impulse  not  his  own." 

"  Then  must  he  be  part  and  portion  of  your  destiny.  I'm 
thinking  whether  our  noble  commandant  intends  to  leave  us 
without  anything  to  eat  or  drink." 

"  I  should  not  be  surprised ;  that  he  will  attempt  my  life  I 
276 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

am  convinced,  but  not  that  he  can  take  it ;  he  may,  however, 
add  to  its  sufferings." 

As  soon  as  the  commandant  had  recovered  from  his  fury 
he  ordered  Schriften  in,  to  be  examined  more  particularly  ; 
but,  after  every  search  made  for  him,  Schriften  was  nowhere 
to  be  found.  The  sentry  at  the  gate  declared  that  he  had 
not  passed ;  and  a  new  search  was  ordered,  but  in  vain. 
Even  the  dungeons  and  galleries  below  were  examined,  but 
without  success. 

"  Can  he  be  locked  up  with  the  other  prisoners  ?  "  thought 
the  commandant ;  "  impossible — but  I  will  go  and  see." 

He  descended  and  opened  the  door  of  the  dungeon,  looked 
in,  and  was  about  to  return  without  speaking,  when  Krantz 
said,  "  Well,  signor,  this  is  kind  treatment,  after  having  lived 
so  long  and  so  amicably  together ;  to  throw  us  into  prison 
merely  because  a  fellow  declares  that  we  are  not  what  we 
represented  ourselves  to  be  ;  perhaps  you  will  allow  us  a  little 
water  to  drink  ?  " 

The  commandant,  confused  by  the  extraordinary  disappear- 
ance of  Schriften,  hardly  knew  how  to  reply.  He  at  last  said, 
in  a  milder  tone  than  was  to  be  anticipated,  "  I  will  order 
them  to  bring  some,  signor." 

He  then  closed  the  door  of  the  dungeon  and  disappeared. 

"Strange,"  said  Philip;  "  he  appears  more  pacified  already." 

In  a  few  minutes  the  door  was  again  opened,  and  Pedro 
came  in  with  a  chatty  of  water. 

"  He  has  disappeared  like  magic,  signers,  and  is  nowhere  to 
be  found.  We  have  searched  everywhere,  but  in  vain." 

"  Who  ?— the  little  old  seaman  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  whom  you  kicked  as  you  were  led  to  prison.  The 
people  all  say  that  it  must  have  been  a  ghost.  The  sentry 
declares  that  he  never  left  the  fort,  nor  came  near  him  ;  so  how 
he  has  got  away  is  a  riddle,  which  I  perceive  has  frightened  our 
commandant  not  a  little." 

Krantz  gave  a  long  whistle  as  he  looked  at  Philip. 

"  Are  you  to  have  charge  of  us,  Pedro  ? " 
1    "  I  hope  so." 

"Well,  tell  the  commandant  that  when  he  is  ready  to  listen 
to  me,  I  have  something  of  importance  to  communicate." 

Pedro  went  out. 

"  Now,  Philip,  I  can  frighten  this  little  man  into  allowing  us 
277 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

to  go  free,  if  you  will  consent  to  say  that  you  are  not  the 
husband  of  Amine." 

"That  I  cannot  do,  Krantz.  I  will  not  utter  such  a 
falsehood." 

"  I  was  afraid  so,  and  yet  it  appears  to  me  that  we  may  avail 
ourselves  of  duplicity  to  meet  cruelty  and  injustice.  Unless 
you  do  as  I  projx>se,  I  hardly  know  how  I  can  manage  it ; 
however,  I  will  try  what  I  can  do." 

"  I  will  assist  you  in  every  way,  except  disclaiming  my  wife ; 
that  I  never  will  do." 

"  Well  then,  I  will  see  if  I  can  make  up  a  story  that  will  suit 
all  parties  ;  let  me  think." 

Krantz  continued  musing  as  he  walked  up  and  down,  and 
was  still  occupied  with  his  own  thoughts,  when  the  door  opened, 
and  the  commandant  made  his  appearance. 

"  You  have  something  to  impart  to  me,  I  understand — what 
is  it  ?  " 

"  First,  sir,  bring  that  little  wretch  down  here  and  confront 
him  with  us." 

"I  see  no  occasion  for  that,"  replied  the  commandant; 
"  what,  sir,  may  you  have  to  say  ?  " 

"  Do  you  know  who  you  have  in  your  company  when  you 
speak  to  that  one-eyed  deformity  ?  " 

"  A  Dutch  sailor,  I  presume." 

"  No — a  spirit — a  demon — who  occasioned  the  loss  of  the 
vessel ;  and  who  brings  misfortune  wherever  he  appears." 

"  Holy  Virgin  !  what  do  you  tell  me,  signer  ?  " 

"  The  fact,  Signor  Commandant.  We  are  obliged  to  you  for 
confining  us  here,  while  he  is  in  the  fort ;  but  beware  for 
yourself." 

"  You  are  laughing  at  me." 

"  I  am  not ;  bring  him  down  here.  This  noble  gentleman 
has  power  over  him.  I  wonder,  indeed,  at  his  daring  to  stay 
while  he  is  so  near ;  he  has  on  his  heart  that  which  will  send 
him  trembling  away.  Bring  him  down  here,  and  you  shall  at 
once  see  him  vanish  with  curses  and  screams." 

"  Heaven  defend  us  !  "  cried  the  commandant,  terrified. 

"Send  for  him  now,  signer." 

"  He  is  gone — vanished — not  to  be  found  ! " 

"  I  thought  as  much,"  replied  Philip  significantlv. 

"He  is  gone — vanished — you  say.  Then,  commandant,  you 
278 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

will  probably  apologise  to  this  noble  gentleman  for  your  treat, 
ment  of  him,  and  permit  us  to  return  to  our  former  apartments. 
I  will  there  explain  to  you  this  most  strange  and  interesting 
history." 

The  commandant,  more  confused  than  ever,  hardly  knew  how 
to  act.  At  last  he  bowed  to  Philip,  and  begged  that  he  would 
consider  himself  atliberty  :  "  And,"  continued  he  to  Krantz,  "  I 
shall  be  most  happy  at  an  immediate  explanation  of  this  affair, 
for  everything  appears  so  contradictory." 

"And  must,  until  it  is  explained.  I  will  follow  you  into 
your  own  room  ;  a  courtesy  you  must  not  expect  from  my 
noble  friend,  who  is  not  a  little  indignant  at  your  treatr  /ent 
of  him." 

The  commandant  went  out,  leaving  the  door  open.  Philip 
and  Krantz  followed  ;  the  former  retiring  to  his  own  apart- 
ment, the  latter  bending  his  steps  after  the  commandant  to 
his  sitting-room.  The  confusion  which  whirled  in  the  brain  of 
the  commandant  made  him  appear  most  ridiculous.  He  hardly 
knew  whether  to  be  imperative  or  civil ;  whether  he  was  really 
speaking  to  the  first  mate  of  the  vessel,  or  to  another  party  ;  or 
whether  he  had  insulted  a  noble,  or  been  cajoled  by  a  captain 
of  a  vessel.  He  threw  himself  down  on  his  sofa,  and  Krantz, 
taking  his  seat  in  a  chair,  stated  as  follows : — 

"You  have  been  partly  deceived  and  parti v  not,  com- 
mandant. When  we  first  came  here,  not  knowing  what  treat- 
ment we  might  receive,  we  concealed  our  rank  ;  afterwards  I 
made  known  to  you  the  rank  of  my  friend  on  shore,  but  did 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  say  anything  about  his  situation  on 
board  of  the  vessel.  The  fact  is,  as  you  may  well  suppose  of 
a  person  of  his  dignity,  he  was  owner  of  the  fine  ship  which 
was  lost  through  the  intervention  of  that  one-eyed  wretch  ;  but 
of  that  by-and-by.  Now  for  the  story.  About  ten  years  ago 
there  was  a  great  miser  in  Amsterdam ;  he  lived  in  the  most 
miserable  way  that  a  man  could  live  in  ;  wore  nothing  but 
rags  ;  and  having  been  formerly  a  seaman,  his  attire  was  gene- 
rally of  the  description  common  to  his  class.  He  had  one  son, 
to  whom  he  denied  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  whom  he  treated 
most  cruelly.  After  vain  attempts  to  possess  a  portion  of  his 
father's  wealth,  the  devil  instigated  the  son  to  murder  the  old 
man,  who  was  one  day  found  dead  in  his  bed  ;  but  as  there 
were  no  marks  of  violence  which  could  be  sworn  to,  although 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Suspicion  fell  upon  the  son,  the  affair  was  hushed  up,  and  the 
young  man  took  possession  of  his  father's  wealth.  It  was  fully 
expected  that  there  would  now  be  rioting  and  squandering  on 
the  part  of  the  heir,  as  is  usually  the  case ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, he  never  spent  anything,  but  appeared  to  be  as  poor — • 
even  poorer — than  he  ever  was.  Instead  of  being  gay  and 
merry,  he  was,  in  appearance,  the  most  miserable,  downcast 
person  in  the  world  ;  and  he  wandered  about  seeking  a  crust 
of  bread  wherever  he  could  find  it.  Some  said  that  he  had 
been  inoculated  by  his  father,  and  was  as  great  a  miser  as  his 
father  had  been ;  others  shook  their  heads,  and  said  that  all 
•was  not  right.  At  last,  after  pining  away  for  six  or  seven 
years,  the  young  man  died  at  an  early  age,  without  confession 
or  absolution  ;  in  fact,  he  was  found  dead  in  his  bed.  Beside 
the  bed  there  was  a  paper  addressed  to  the  authorities,  in  which 
he  acknowledged  that  he  had  murdered  his  father  for  the  sake 
of  his  wealth  ;  and  that  when  he  went  to  take  some  of  it  for 
his  expenses  on  the  day  afterwards,  he  found  his  father's  spirit 
sitting  on  the  bags  of  money,  and  menacing  him  with  instant 
death  if  he  touched  one  piece.  He  returned  again  and  again, 
and  found  his  father  a  sentinel  as  before.  At  last  he  gave  up 
attempting  to  obtain  it :  his  crime  made  him  miserable,  and  he 
continued  in  possession,  without  daring  to  expend  one  sixpence 
of  all  the  money.  He  requested  that,  as  his  end  was  approach- 
ing, the  money  should  be  given  to  the  church  of  his  patron 
saint,  wherever  that  church  might  be  found  ;  if  there  was  not 
one,  then  that  a  church  might  be  built  and  endowed.  Upon 
investigation,  it  appeared  that  there  was  no  such  church  in 
either  Holland  or  the  Low  Countries  (for  you  know  that  there 
are  not  many  Catholics  there);  and  they  applied  to  the 
Catholic  countries  Lisbon  and  Spain,  but  there  again  they 
were  at  fault ;  and  it  was  discovered  that  the  only  church 
dedicated  to  that  saint  was  one  which  had  been  erected  by  a 
Portuguese  nobleman  in  the  city  of  Goa,  in  the  East  Indies. 
The  Catholic  bishop  determined  that  the  money  should  be 
sent  to  Goa ;  and,  in  consequence,  it  was  embarked  on  board 
of  my  patron's  vessel,  to  be  delivered  up  to  the  first  Portu- 
guese authorities  he  might  fall  in  with. 

"Well,  signor,  the  money,  for  better   security,  was  put 
down  into  the  captain's  cabin,  which,  of  course,  was  occupied 
by  ray  noble  friend,  and  when  he  went  to  bed  the  first  night 
280 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

he  was  surprised  to  perceive  a  little  one-eyed  old  man  sitting 
on  the  boxes." 

"  Merciful  Saviour  ! "  exclaimed  the  commandant,  "  what, 
the  very  same  little  man  who  appeared  here  this  day  ?  " 

"The  very  same/'  replied  Krantz. 

The  commandant  crossed  himself,  and  Krantz  proceeded — 

"  My  noble  patron  was,  as  you  may  imagine,  rather  alarmed  ; 
but  he  is  very  courageous  in  disposition,  and  he  inquired  of 
the  old  man  who  he  was,  and  how  he  came  on  board. 

" '  I  came  on  board  with  my  own  "money,'  replied  the 
spectre.  '  It  is  all  my  own,  and  I  shall  keep  it  The  Church 
shall  never  have  one  stiver  of  it  if  I  can  help  it.' 

"Whereupon  my  patron  pulled  out  a  famous  relic,  which 
he  wears  on  his  bosom,  and  held  it  towards  him  ;  at  which 
the  old  man  howled  and  screamed,  and  then  most  unwillingly 
disappeared.  For  two  more  nights  the  spectre  was  obstinate, 
but  at  the  sight  of  the  relic  he  invariably  went  off  howling, 
as  if  in  great  pain  ;  every  time  that  he  went  away,  invariably 
crying  out  '  Lost — lost  ! ' — and  during  the  remainder  of  the 
voyage  he  did  not  trouble  us  any  more. 

"We  thought,  when  our  patron  told  us  this,  that  he  re- 
ferred to  the  money  being  lost  to  him,  but  it  appears  he 
referred  to  the  ship  ;  indeed,  it  was  very  inconsiderate  to 
have  taken  the  wealth  of  a  parricide  on  board  ;  we  could  not 
expect  any  good  fortune  with  such  a  freight,  and  so  it  proved. 
When  the  ship  was  lost,  our  patron  was  very  anxious  to  save 
the  money  ;  it  was  put  on  the  j aft,  and  when  we  landed,  it 
was  taken  on  shore  and  buried,  that  it  might  be  restored  and 
given  to  the  church  to  which  it  had  been  bequeathed;  but 
the  men  who  buried  it  are  all  dead,  and  there  is  no  one  but 
my  friend  here,  the  patron,  who  knows  the  spot.  I  forgot  to 
say  that  as  soon  as  the  money  was  landed  on  the  island  and 
buried,  the  spectre  appeared  as  before,  and  seated  itself  over 
the  spot  where  the  money  was  interred.  I  think,  if  this  had 
not  been  the  case,  the  seamen  would  have  taken  possession  of 
it.  But,  by  its  appearance  here  this  day,  I  presume  it  is  tired, 
and  has  deserted  its  charge,  or  else  has  come  here  that  the 
money  might  be  sent  for,  though  I  cannot  understand  why." 

"Strange — very  strange  !  So  there  is  a  large  treasure 
buried  in  the  sand  I " 

«  There  is. " 

281 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

*  I  should  think,  by  the  spectre's  coming  here,  that  it  has 
abandoned  it." 

"  Of  course  it  has,  or  it  would  not  be  here." 

"  What  can  you  imagine  to  have  been  the  cause  of  its 
coming  ?  " 

"  Probably  to  announce  its  intention,  and  request  my 
friend  to  have  the  treasure  sent  for;  but  you  know  it  was 
interrupted." 

"  Very  true  ;  but  it  called  your  friend  Vanderdecken." 

"  It  was  the  name  which  he  took  on  board  of  the  ship." 

"  And  it  was  the  name  of  the  lady  ?  " 

"  Very  true.  He  fell  in  with  her  at  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  brought  her  away  with  him." 

"Then  she  is  his  wife?"" 

"  I  must  not  answer  that  question.  It  is  quite  sufficient 
that  he  treats  her  as  his  wife." 

"  Ah  !  indeed.  But  about  this  treasure.  You  say  that  no 
one  knows  where  it  is  buried  but  the  patron,  as  you  call 
him  ?  " 

"  No  one." 

"  Will  you  express  my  regret  at  what  has  passed,  and  tell 
him  I  will  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  to-morrow  ?  " 

"Certainly,  signor,"  replied  Krantz,  rising  from  his  chair, 
and  wishing  the  commandant  a  good  evening  as  he  retired. 

"  I  was  after  one  thing,  and  have  found  another.  A  spectre 
that  must  have  been  ;  but  he  must  be  a  bold  spectre  that 
can  frighten  me  from  doubloons ;  besides,  I  can  call  in  the 
priests.  Now,  let  me  see  ;  if  I  let  this  man  go  on  condition 
that  he  reveals  the  site  of  the  treasure  to  the  authorities — 
that  is,  to  me — why  then  I  need  not  lose  the  fair  young 
woman.  If  I  forward  this  paper  to  her,  why  then  I  gain  her ; 
but  I  must  first  get  rid  of  him.  Of  the  two  I  prefer — yes  ! — 
the  gold  !  But  I  cannot  obtain  both.  At  all  events,  let  me 
obtain  the  money  first.  I  want  it  more  than  the  Church 
does ;  but  if  I  do  get  the  money,  these  two  men  can  expose 
me.  I  must  get  rid  of  them — silence  them  for  ever — and 
then  perhaps  I  may  obtain  the  fair  Amine  also.  Yes,  their 
death  will  be  necessary  to  secure  either  ;  that  is,  after  I  have 
the  first  in  my  possession.  Let  me  think." 

For  some  minutes  the  commandant  walked  up  and  down 
the  room,  reflecting  upon  the  best  method  of  proceeding, 
191 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  He  says  it  was  a  spectre,  and  he  has  told  a  plausible  story," 
thought  he  ;  "  but  I  don't  know — I  have  my  doubts  ;  they 
may  be  tricking  me.  Well,  be  it  so.  If  the  money  is  there, 
I  will  have  it ;  and  if  not,  I  will  have  my  revenge.  Yes  !  I 
have  it :  not  only  must  they  be  removed,  but  by  degrees  all 
the  others  too  who  assist  in  bringing  the  treasure  away. 
Then — but— who's  there— Pedro  ?  " 

"  Yes,  signor." 

"  How  long  have  you  been  here  ?  " 

"  But  as  you  spoke,  signor ;  I  thought  I  heard  you  call." 

"  You  may  go — I  want  nothing." 

Pedro  departed  ;  but  he  had  been  some  time  in  the  room, 
and  had  overheard  the  whole  of  the  commandant's  soliloquy. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

IT  was  a  bright  morning  when  the  Portuguese  vessel  which 
Ainine  was  on  board  entered  into  the  bay  and  roadstead  of 
Goa.  Goawas  then  at  its  zenith — a  proud,  luxurious,  superb, 
wealthy  city  —  the  capital  of  the  East  —  a  city  of  palaces, 
whose  viceroy  reigned  supreme.  As  they  approached  the 
river,  the  two  mouths  of  which  form  the  island  upon  which 
Goa  is  built,  the  passengers  were  all  on  deck ;  and  the 
Portuguese  captain,  who  had  often  been  there,  pointed  out 
to  Amiue  the  most  remarkable  buildings.  When  they  had 
passed  the  forts  they  entered  the  river,  the  whole  line  of 
whose  banks  were  covered  with  the  country  seats  of  the 
nobility  and  hidalgos  —  splendid  buildings  embosomed  in 
groves  of  orange-trees,  whose  perfume  scented  the  air. 

"  There,  signora,  is  the  country  palace  of  the  viceroy,"  said 
the  captain,  pointing  to  a  building  which  covered  nearly  three 
acres  of  ground. 

The  ship  sailed  on  until  they  arrived  nearly  abreast  of  the 
town,  when  Amine's  eyes  were  directed  to  the  lofty  spires  of 
the  churches,  and  other  public  edifices ;  for  Amine  had  seen 
but  little  of  cities  during  her  life,  as  may  be  perceived  when 
her  history  is  recollected. 

"That  is  the  Jesuits'  church,  with  their  establishment,"  said 
the  captain,  pointing  to  a  magnificent  pile.  "  In  the  church 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

now  opening  upon  us  lie  the  canonised  bones  of  the  celebrated 
Saint  Francisco,  who  sacrificed  his  life  in  his  zeal  for  the 
propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  these  countries." 

"  I  have  heard  of  him  from  Father  Mathias,"  replied  Amine  ; 
«  but  what  building  is  that  ? " 

"  The  Augustine  convent ;  and  the  other,  to  the  right,  is 
the  Dominican." 

"  Splendid,  indeed  !  "  observed  Amine. 

"The  building  you  see  now,  on  the  water-side,  is  the  viceroy's 
palace ;  that  to  the  right,  again,  is  the  convent  of  the  bare- 
footed Carmelites;  yon  lofty  cpire  is  the  cathedral  of  St. 
Catherine  ;  and  that  beautiful  and  light  piece  of  architecture 
is  the  Church  of  our  Lady  of  Pity.  You  observe  there  a 
building  with  a  dome,  rising  behind  the  viceroy's  palace  ?  " 

"  I  do,"  replied  Amine. 

"That  is  the  Holy  Inquisition." 

Although  Amine  had  heard  Philip  speak  of  the  Inquisition, 
she  knew  little  about  its  properties ;  but  a  sudden  tremor 
passed  through  her  frame  as  the  name  was  mentioned,  which 
she  could  not  herself  account  for. 

"  Now  we  open  upon  the  viceroy's  palace,  and  you  perceive 
what  a  beautiful  building  it  is,"  continued  the  captain.  "  That 
large  pile,  a  little  above  it,  is  the  Custom-house,  abreast  of 
which  we  shall  come  to  an  anchor.  I  must  leave  you  now, 
signora." 

A  few  minutes  afterwards  the  ship  anchored  opposite  the 
Custom-house.  The  captain  and  passengers  went  on  shore,  with 
the  exception  of  Amine,  who  remained  in  the  vessel  while 
Father  Mathias  went  in  search  of  an  eligible  place  of  abode. 

The  next  morning  the  priest  returned  on  board  the  ship,  with 
the  intelligence  that  he  had  obtained  a  reception  for  Amine  in 
the  Ursuline  convent,  the  abbess  of  which  establishment  he 
was  acquainted  with  ;  and,  before  Amine  went  on  shore,  he 
cautioned  her  that  the  lady-abbess  was  a  strict  woman,  and 
would  be  pleased  if  she  conformed  as  much  as  possible  to  the 
rules  of  the  convent ;  that  this  convent  only  received  young 
persons  of  the  highest  and  most  wealthy  families,  and  he 
trusted  that  she  would  be  happy  there.  He  also  promised  to 
call  upon  her,  and  talk  upon  those  subjects  so  dear  to  his 
heart,  and  so  necessary  to  her  salvation.  The  earnestness  and 
Jtindness  with  which  the  old  man  spoke  melted  Amine  tg 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

tears ;  and  the  holy  father  quitted  her  side  to  go  down  and 
collect  her  baggage,  -with  a  warmth  of  feeling  towards  her 
which  he  had  seldom  felt  before,  and  with  greater  hopes  than 
ever  that  his  endeavours  to  convert  her  would  not  ultimately 
be  thrown  away. 

"  He  is  a  good  man,"  thought  Amine,  as  she  descended — 
and  Amine  was  right.  Father  Mathias  was  a  good  man  ;  but, 
like  all  men,  he  was  not  perfect.  A  zealot  in  the  cause  of 
his  religion,  he  would  have  cheerfully  sacrificed  his  life  as  a 
martyr ;  but  if  opposed  or  thwarted  in  his  views,  he  could 
then  be  cruel  and  unjust. 

Father  Mathias  had  many  reasons  for  placing  Amine  in  the 
Ursuline  convent.  He  felt  bound  to  offer  her  that  protection 
which  he  had  so  long  received  under  her  roof;  he  wished  her 
to  be  under  the  surveillance  of  the  abbess,  for  he  could  not 
help  imagining,  although  he  had  no  proof,  that  she  was  still 
essaying  or  practising  forbidden  arts.  He  did  not  state  this 
to  the  abbess,  as  he  felt  it  would  be  unjust  to  raise  suspicions ; 
but  he  represented  Amine  as  one  who  would  do  honour  to 
their  faith,  to  which  she  was  not  yet  quite  converted.  The  very 
idea  of  effecting  a  conversion  is  to  the  tenants  of  a  convent  an 
object  of  surpassing  interest,  and  the  abbess  was  much  better 
pleased  to  receive  one  who  required  her  counsels  and  per- 
suasions, than  a  really  pious  Christian,  Mho  would  give  her  no 
trouble.  Amine  went  on  shore  with  Father  Mathias  ;  she 
refused  the  palanquin  which  had  been  prepared  for  her,  and 
walked  up  to  the  convent.  They  landed  between  the  Custom- 
house and  the  viceroy's  palace,  passed  through  the  large  square 
behind  it,  and  then  went  up  the  Strada  Diretta.  or  straight 
street,  which  led  up  to  the  Church  of  Pity,  near  to  which  the 
convent  is  situated.  This  street  is  the  finest  in  Goa,  and  is 
called  Strada  Diretta  from  the  singular  fact  that  almost  all  the 
streets  in  Goa  are  quadrants  or  segments  of  circles.  Amine 
was  astonished.  The  houses  were  of  stone,  lofty  and  massive  ; 
at  each  storey  was  thrown  out  a  balcony  of  marble,  elaborately 
carved ;  and  over  each  door  were  the  arms  of  the  nobility,  or 
hidalgos,  to  whom  the  houses  belonged.  The  square  behind 
the  palace  and  the  wide  streets  were  filled  with  living  beings  ; 
elephants  with  gorgeous  trappings  ;  led  or  mounted  horses  in 
superb  housings ;  palanquins,  carried  by  natives  in  splendid 
liveries ;  running  footmen ;  syces ;  every  variety  of  nation, 
285 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

from  the  proud  Portuguese  to  the  half-covered  native ;  Mus- 
sulmans, Arabs,  Hindoos,  Armenians ;  officers  and  soldiers  in 
their  uniforms,  all  crowded  and  thronged  together — all  was 
bustle  and  motion.  Such  was  the  wealth,  the  splendour,  and 
luxury  of  the  proud  city  of  Goa — the  Empress  of  the  East — at 
the  time  we  are  now  describing. 

In  half-an-hour  they  forced  their  way  through  the  crowd 
and  arrived  at  the  convent,  where  Amine  was  well  received 
by  the  abbess,  and,  after  a  few  minutes'  conversation,  Father 
Mathias  took  his  leave ;  upon  which  the  abbess  immediately 
set  about  her  task  of  conversion.  The  first  thing  she  did 
was  to  order  some  dried  sweetmeats — not  a  bad  beginning, 
as  they  were  palatable  ;  but  as  she  happened  to  be  very 
ignorant,  and  unaccustomed  to  theological  disputes,  her  sub- 
sequent arguments  did  not  go  down  as  well  as  the  fruit. 
After  a  rambling  discourse  of  about  an  hour,  the  old  lady  felt 
tired,  and  felt  as  if  she  had  done  wonders.  Amine  was  then 
introduced  to  the  nuns,  most  of  whom  were  young,  and  all  of 
good  family.  Her  dormitory  was  shown  to  her ;  and  express- 
ing a  wish  to  be  alone,  she  was  followed  into  the  chamber 
by  only  sixteen  of  them,  which  was  about  as  many  as  the 
chamber  could  well  hold. 

We  must  pass  over  the  two  months  during  which  Amine 
remained  in  the  convent.  Father  Mathias  had  taken  every 
step  to  ascertain  if  her  husband  had  been  saved  upon  any  of 
the  islands  which  were  under  the  Portuguese  dominion,  but 
could  gain  no  information.  Amine  was  soon  weary  of  the 
convent ;  she  was  persecuted  by  the  harangues  of  the  old 
abbess,  but  more  disgusted  at  the  conduct  and  conversation 
of  the  nuns.  They  all  had  secrets  to  confide  to  her — secrets 
which  had  been  confided  to  the  whole  convent  before :  such 
secrets,  such  stories,  so  different  from  Amine's  chaste  ideas — 
such  impurity  of  thought — that  Amine  was  disgusted  at  them. 
But  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  The  poor  creatures  had  been 
taken  from  the  world  in  the  full  bloom  of  youth,  under  a 
ripening  sun,  and  had  been  immured  in  this  unnatural  manner 
to  gratify  the  avarice  and  pride  of  their  families.  Its  inmates 
being  wholly  composed  of  the  best  families,  the  rules  of  this 
convent  were  not  so  strict  as  others ;  licenses  were  given — 
greater  licenses  were  taken — and  Amine,  to  her  surprise,  found 
that  in  this  society,  devoted  to  Heaven,  there  were  exhibited 
286 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

more  of  the  bad  passions  of  human  nature  than  she  had  before 
met  with.  Constantly  watched,  never  allowed  a  moment  to 
herself,  her  existence  became  unbearable  ;  and  after  three 
months,  she  requested  Father  Mathias  would  find  her  some 
other  place  of  refuge,  telling  him  frankly  that  her  residence 
in  that  place  was  not  very  likely  to  assist  her  conversion  to 
the  tenets  of  his  faith.  Father  Mathias  fully  comprehended 
her,  but  replied,  "  I  have  no  means." 

"  Here  are  means,"  replied  Amine,  taking  the  diamond 
ring  from  her  finger.  "This  is  worth  eight  hundred  ducats 
in  our  country  ;  here,  I  know  not  how  much." 

Father  Mathias  took  the  ring.  "  I  vrill  call  upon  you 
to-moiTow  morning,  and  let  you  know  what  I  have  done.  I 
shall  acquaint  the  lady  abbess  that  you  are  going  to  your 
husband,  for  it  would  not  be  safe  to  let  her  suppose  that  you 
have  reasons  for  quitting  the  convent.  I  have  heard  what 
you  state  mentioned  before,  but  have  treated  it  as  scandal ; 
but  you,  I  know,  are  incapable  of  falsehood." 

The  next  day  Father  Mathias  returned,  and  had  an  inter- 
view with  the  abbess,  who  after  a  time  sent  for  Amine,  and  told 
her  that  it  was  necessary  that  she  should  leave  the  convent. 
She  consoled  her  as  well-  as  she  could  at  leaving  such  a  happy 
place,  sent  for  some  sweetmeats  to  make  the  parting  less 
trying,  gave  her  a  blessing,  and  made  her  over  to  Father 
Mathias ;  who,  when  they  were  alone,  informed  Amine  that 
he  had  disposed  of  the  ring  for  eighteen  hundred  dollars,  and 
had  procured  apartments  for  her  in  the  house  of  a  widow 
lady,  with  whom  she  was  to  board. 

Taking  leave  of  the  nuns,  Amine  quitted  the  convent  with 
Father  Mathias,  and  was  soon  installed  in  her  new  apart- 
ments, in  a  house  which  formed  part  of  a  spacious  square 
called  the  Terra  di  Sabaio.  After  the  introduction  to  her 
hostess,  Father  Mathias  left  her.  Amine  found  her  apart- 
ments fronting  the  square,  airy  and  commodious.  The  land- 
lady, who  had  escorted  her  to  view  them,  not  having  left 
her,  she  inquired  "  what  large  church  that  was  on  the  other 
side  of  the  square  ?  " 

"It  is  the  Ascension/'  replied  the  lady;  "the  music  is 
very  fine  there  ;  we  will  go  and  hear  it  to-r^orrow,  if  you 
please." 

"And  that  massive  building  in  face  of  us?" 
287 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"That  is  the  Holy  Inquisition,"  said  the  widow,  crossing 
herself. 

Amine  again  started,  she  knew  not  why.  "  Is  that  your 
child?"  said  Amine,  as  a  boy  of  about  twelve  years  old 
entered  the  room. 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  widow,  "  the  only  one  that  is  left  me. 
May  God  preserve  him  ! "  The  boy  was  handsome  and  intel- 
ligent, and  Amine,  for  her  own  reasons,  did  everything  she 
could  to  make  friends  with  him,  and  was  successful. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

had  just  returned  from  an  afternoon's  walk  through 
the  streets  of  Goa  ;  she  had  made  some  purchases  at  different 
shops  in  the  bazaar,  and  had  brought  them  home  under  her 
mantilla.  "  Here,  at  last,  thank  Heaven,  I  am  alone  and  not 
watched,"  thought  Amine,  as  she  threw  herself  on  the  couch. 
"Philip,  Philip,  where  are  you?"  exclaimed  she.  "I  have 
now  the  means,  and  I  soon  will  know."  Little  Pedro,  the 
son  of  the  widow,  entering  the  room,  ran  up  to  Amine  and 
kissed  her.  "  Tell  me,  Pedro,  where  is  your  mother  ?  " 

"  She  is  gone  out  to  see  her  friends  this  evening,  and  we 
are  alone.  I  will  stay  with  you." 

"  Do  so,  dearest.    Tell  me,  Pedro,  can  you  keep  a  secret  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  will— tell  it  to  me." 

"Nay,  I  have  nothing  to  tell,  but  I  wish  to  do  some- 
thing ;  I  wish  to  make  a  play,  and  you  shall  see  things  in 
your  hand." 

"  Oh  yes,  show  me,  do  show  me." 

"  If  you  promise  not  to  tell." 

«  No,  by  the  Holy  Virgin,  I  will  not" 

"Then  you  shall  see." 

Amine  lighted  some  charcoal  in  a  chafing-dish,  and  put  it 
at  her  feet ;  she  then  took  a  reed  pen,  some  ink  from  a 
small  bottle,  and  a  pair  of  scissors,  and  wrote  down  several 
characters  on  a  paper,  singing,  or  rather  chanting,  words 
which  were  not  intelligible  to  her  young  companion.  Amine 
then  threw  frankincense  and  coriander  seed  into  the  chafing- 
dish,  which  threw  out  a  strong  aromatic  smoke ;  and  desiring 
888 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

Pedro  to  sit  down  by  her  on  a  small  stool,  she  took  the  boy's 
right  hand  and  held  it  in  her  own.  She  then  drew  upon  the 
palm  of  his  hand  a  square  figure  with  characters  on  each  side 
of  it,  and  in  the  centre  poured  a  small  quantity  of  the  ink,  so 
as  to  form  a  black  mirror  of  the  size  of  half-a-crown. 

"  Now  all  is  ready,"  said  Amine ;  "  look,  Pedro,  what  see 
you  in  the  ink  ?  " 

"  My  own  face,"  replied  the  boy. 

She  threw  more  frankincense  upon  the  chafing-dish,  until 
the  room  was  full  of  smoke,  and  then  chanted — 

"Turshoon,  turyo-shoon — come  down,  come  down. 

"  Be  present,  ye  servants  of  these  names. 

"  Remove  the  veil,  and  be  correct." 

The  characters  she  had  drawn  upon  the  paper,  she  had 
divided  with  the  scissors,  and  now  taking  one  of  the  pieces, 
she  dropped  it  into  the  chafing-dish,  still  holding  the  boy's 
hand. 

"  Tell  me  now,  Pedro,  what  do  you  see  ?  " 

"  I  see  a  man  sweeping,"  replied  Pedro,  alarmed. 

"Fear  not,  Pedro,  you  shall  see  more.  Has  he  done 
sweeping  ? " 

"  Yes,  he  has." 

And  Amine  muttered  words,  which  were  unintelligible,  and 
threw  into  the  chafing-dish  the  other  half  of  the  paper  with 
the  characters  she  had  written  down.  "  Say  now,  Pedro, 
'  Philip  Vanderdecten,  appear.'  " 

"  Philip  Vanderdecken,  appear  ! "  responded  the  boy,  trem- 
bling. 

"Tell  me  what  thou  seest,  Pedro,— tell  me  true?"  said 
Amine  anxiously. 

"  I  see  a  man  lying  down  on  the  white  sand — (I  don't  like 
this  play)." 

"  Be  not  alarmed,  Pedro,  you  shall  have  sweetmeats  directly. 
Tell  me  what  thou  seest,  how  the  man  is  dressed  ?  " 

"He  has  a  short  coat — he  has  white  trousers — he  looks 
about  him — he  takes  something  out  of  his  breast  and 
kisses  it." 

"  Tis  he,  'tis  he !  and  he  lives !  Heaven,  I  thank  thee. 
Look  again,  boy." 

"  He  gets  up — (I  don't  like  this  play ;  I  am  frightened ; 
indeed  I  am\" 

289  T 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

«  Fear  not. 

"Oh  yes,  I  am — I  cannot,"  replied  Pedro,  falling  on  his 
knees  ;  "  pray  let  me  go." 

Pedro  had  turned  his  hand,  and  spilt  the  ink,  the  charm  was 
broken,  and  Amine  could  learn  no  more.  She  soothed  the 
boy  with  presents,  made  him  repeat  his  promise  that  he  would 
not  tell,  and  postponed  further  search  into  fate  until  the  boy 
should  appear  to  have  recovered  from  his  terror,  and  be  willing 
to  resume  the  ceremonies. 

"  My  Philip  lives — mother,  dear  mother,  I  thank  you." 

Amine  did  not  allow  Pedro  to  leave  the  room  until  he 
appeared  to  have  quite  recovered  from  his  fright ;  for  some 
days  she  did  not  say  anything  to  him,  except  to  remind  him  of 
his  promise  not  to  tell  his  mother,  or  any  one  else,  and  she 
loaded  him  with  presents. 

One  afternoon,  when  his  mother  had  gone  out,  Pedro  came 
in  and  asked  Amine  "  whether  they  should  not  have  the  play 
over  again ! " 

Amine,  who  was  anxious  to  know  more,  was  glad  of  the 
boy's  request,  and  soon  had  everything  prepared.  Again  was 
her  chamber  filled  with  the  smoke  of  the  frankincense  :  again 
was  she  muttering  her  incantations :  the  magic  mirror  was  on 
the  boy's  hand,  and  once  more  had  Pedro  cried  out,  "  Philip 
Vanderdecken,  appear ! "  when  the  door  burst  open,  and 
Father  Mathias,  the  widow,  and  several  other  people  made 
their  appearance.  Amine  started  up — Pedro  screamed  and 
ran  to  his  mother. 

"  Then  I  was  not  mistaken  at  what  I  saw  in  the  cottage  at 
Terneuse,"  cried  Father  Mathias,  with  his  arms  folded  over  his 
breast,  and  with  looks  of  indignation ;  "  accursed  sorceress ! 
you  are  detected." 

Amine  returned  his  gaze  with  scorn,  and  coolly  replied,  "  I 
am  not  of  your  creed — you  know  it.  Eavesdropping  appears 
to  be  a  portion  of  your  religion.  This  is  my  chamber — it  is 
not  the  first  time  I  have  had  to  request  you  to  leave  it — I  do 
so  now — you — and  those  who  have  come  in  with  you." 

"  Take  up  all  those  implements  of  sorcery  first,"  said  Father 
Mathias  to  his  companions.  The  chafing-dish,  and  other 
articles  used  by  Amine,  were  taken  away  ;  and  Father  Mathias 
and  the  others  quitting  the  room,  Amine  was  left  alone. 

Amine  had  a  foreboding  that  she  was  lost ;  she  knew  that 
290 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

magic  was  a  crime  of  the  highest  degree  in  Catholic  countries, 
and  that  she  had  been  detected  in  the  very  act.  "Well, 
well,"  thought  Amine,  "it  is  my  destiny,  and  I  can  brave 
the  worst." 

To  account  for  the  appearance  of  Father  Mathias  and  the 
witnesses,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  little  boy  Pedro  had, 
the  day  after  Amine's  first  attempt,  forgotten  his  promise,  and 
narrated  to  his  mother  all  that  had  passed.  The  widow, 
frightened  at  what  the  boy  had  told  her,  thought  it  right  to 
go  to  Father  Mathias,  and  confide  to  him  what  her  son  had 
told  her,  as  it  was,  in  her  opinion,  sorcery.  Father  Mathias 
questioned  Pedro  closely,  and,  convinced  that  such  was  the 
case,  determined  to  have  witnesses  to  confront  Amine.  He 
therefore  proposed  that  the  boy  should  appear  to  be  willing 
to  try  again,  and  had  instructed  him  for  the  purpose,  having 
previously  arranged  that  they  should  break  in  upon  Amine,  as 
we  have  described. 

About  half-an-hour  afterwards,  two  men  dressed  in  black 
gowns  came  into  Amine's  room,  and  requested  that  she  would 
follow  them  ;  or  that  force  would  be  used.  Amine  made  no 
resistance  :  they  crossed  the  square  ;  the  gate  of  a  large  build- 
ing was  opened ;  they  desired  her  to  walk  in,  and,  in  a  few 
seconds,  Amine  found  herself  in  one  of  the  dungeons  of  the 
Inquisition, 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

X  REVIOUS  to  continuing  our  narrative,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
give  our  readers  some  little  insight  into  the  nature,  ceremonies, 
and  regulations  of  the  Inquisition  ;  and  in  describing  that  of 
Goa,  we  may  be  said  to  describe  all  others,  with  very  trifling, 
if  any,  variation. 

The  Santa  Casa,  or  Inquisition  of  Goa,  is  situated  on  one 
side  of  a  large  square,  called  the  Terra  di  Sabaio.  It  is  a 
massy,  handsome  pile  of  stone  buildings,  with  three  doors  in 
the  front:  the  centre  one  is  larger  than  the  two  lateral,  and 
it  is  through  the  centre  door  that  you  go  into  the  Hall  of 
Judgment.  The  side-doors  lead  to  spacious  and  handsome 
apartments  for  the  Inquisitors,  and  offices  attached  to  the 
establishment. 

291 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

Behind  these  apartments  are  the  cells  and  dungeons  of  the 
Inquisition ;  they  are  in  two  long  galleries,  with  double  doors 
to  each,  and  are  about  ten  feet  square.  There  are  about  two 
hundred  of  them ;  some  are  much  more  comfortable  than  the 
others,  as  light  and  air  are  admitted  into  them  ;  the  others  are 
wholly  dark.  In  the  galleries  the  keepers  watch,  and  not  a 
word  or  a  sound  can  proceed  from  any  cell  without  their  being 
able  to  overhear  it.  The  treatment  of  those  confined  is,  as  far 
as  respects  their  food,  very  good  :  great  care  is  taken  that  the 
nourishment  is  of  that  nature  that  the  prisoners  may  not  suffer 
from  the  indigestion  arising  from  want  of  exercise.  Surgical 
attendance  is  also  permitted  them ;  but,  unless  on  very  par- 
ticular occasions,  no  priests  are  allowed  to  enter.  Any  consola- 
tion to  be  derived  from  religion,  even  the  office  of  confessor 
and  extreme  unction,  in  case  of  dissolution,  are  denied  them. 
Should  they  die  during  their  confinement,  whether  proved 
guilty  or  not  of  the  crime  of  which  they  are  accused,  they  are 
buried  without  any  funeral  ceremony,  and  tried  afterwards; 
if  then  found  guilty,  their  bones  are  disinterred,  and  the  execu- 
tion of  their  sentence  is  passed  upon  their  remains. 

There  are  two  Inquisitors  at  Goa :  one  the  Grand  Inqui- 
sitor, and  the  other  his  second,  who  are  invariably  chosen  from 
the  order  of  St.  Dominique ;  these  two  are  assisted  in  their 
judgment  and  examinations  by  a  large  number  selected  from 
the  religious  orders,  who  are  termed  deputies  of  the  Holy 
Office,  but  who  only  attend  when  summoned  :  they  have 
other  officers,  whose  duty  it  is  to  examine  all  published  books, 
and  ascertain  if  there  is  anything  in  their  pages  contrary  to 
the  holy  religion.  There  is  also  a  public  accuser,  a  procureur 
of  the  Inquisition,  and  lawyers,  who  are  permitted  to  plead 
the  case  of  the  prisoners,  but  whose  chief  business  and  interest 
it  is  to  obtain  their  secrets  and  betray  them.  What  are  termed 
Familiars  of  the  Inquisition  are,  in  fact,  nothing  but  this  de- 
scription of  people ;  but  this  disgraceful  office  is  taken  upon 
themselves  by  the  highest  nobility,  who  think  it  an  honour,  as 
well  as  a  security,  to  be  enrolled  among  the  Familiars  of  the 
Inquisition,  who  are  thus  to  be  found  dispersed  throughout 
society  ;  and  every  careless  word  or  expression  is  certain  to 
be  repeated  to  the  Holy  Office.  A  summons  to  attend  at  the 
Inquisition  is  never  opposed ;  if  it  were,  the  whole  populace 
Would  rise  and  enforce  it.  Those  who  are  confined  in  thQ 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

dungeons  of  the  Inquisition  are  kept  separate ;  it  is  a  very 
uncommon  thing  to  put  two  together ;  it  is  only  done  when 
it  is  considered  that  the  prolonged  solitude  of  the  dungeon 
has  created  such  a  depression  of  spirits  as  to  endanger  the 
life  of  the  party.  Perpetual  silence  is  enjoined  and  strictly 
kept.  Those  who  wail  or  weep,  or  even  pray,  in  their  utter 
darkness,  are  forced  by  blows  to  be  quiet.  The  cries  and 
shrieks  of  those  who  suffer  from  this  chastisement,  or  from 
the  torture,  are  carried  along  the  whole  length  of  the  corridors, 
terrifying  those  who,  in  solitude  and  darkness,  are  anticipating 
the  same  fate. 

The  first  question  put  to  a  person  arrested  by  the  Inquisi- 
tion, is  a  demand,  "  What  is  his  property  ?  "  He  is  desired 
to  make  an  exact  declaration  of  everything  that  he  is  worth, 
and  swear  to  the  truth  of  his  assertions ;  being  informed  that, 
if  there  is  any  reservation  on  his  part  (although  he  may  be 
at  that  time  innocent  of  the  charges  produced  against  him), 
he  will,  by  his  concealment,  have  incurred  the  wrath  of  the 
Inquisition  ;  and  that,  if  discharged  for  the  crime  he  is  accused 
of,  he  will  again  be  arrested  for  having  taken  a  false  oath  to 
the  Inquisition  ;  that,  if  innocent,  his  property  will  be  safe, 
and  not  interfered  with.  It  is  not  without  reason  that  this 
demand  is  made.  If  a  person  accused  confesses  his  crime, 
he  is,  in  most  cases,  eventually  allowed  to  go  free,  but  all  his 
property  becomes  confiscated. 

By  the  rules  of  the  Inquisition,  it  is  made  to  appear  as  if 
those  condemned  have  the  show  of  justice  ;  for,  although  two 
witnesses  are  sufficient  to  warrant  the  apprehension  of  any 
individual,  seven  are  necessary  to  convict  him  ;  but  as  the 
witnesses  are  never  confronted  with  the  prisoners,  and  torture 
is  often  applied  to  the  witnesses,  it  is  not  difficult  to  obtain 
the  number  required.  Many  a  life  is  falsely  sworn  away  by 
the  witness,  that  he  may  save  Ins  own.  The  chief  crimes 
which  are  noticed  by  the  Inquisition  are  thoe.e  of  sorcery, 
heresy,  blasphemy,  and  what  is  called  Judaism. 

To  comprehend  the  meaning  of  this  last  crime,  for  which 
more  people  have  suffered  from  the  Inquisition  than  for  any 
other,  the  reader  must  be  informed  that  when  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  of  Castile  drove  all  the  Jews  out  of  Spain,  they  fled  to 
Portugal,  where  they  were  received  on  the  sole  condition  that 
they  should  embrace  Christianity:  this  they  consented,  or 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

appeared  to  consent,  to  do ;  but  these  converts  were  despised 
by  the  Portuguese  people,  who  did  not  believe  them  to  be 
sincere.  They  obtained  the  title  of  New  Christians,  in  contra- 
distinction to  that  of  Old  Christians.  After  a  time  the  two 
were  occasionally  intermingled  in  marriage ;  but  when  so,  it 
was  always  a  reproach  to  the  old  families ;  and  descendants 
from  these  alliances  were  long  termed,  by  way  of  reproach,  as 
having  a  portion  of  the  New  Christians  in  them. 

The  descendants  of  the  old  families  thus  intermingled  not 
only  lost  caste,  but,  as  the  genealogy  of  every  family  was  well 
known,  they  were  looked  upon  with  suspicion,  and  were  always 
at  the  mercy  of  the  Holy  Office,  when  denounced  for  Judaism, 
— that  is,  for  returning  to  the  old  Jewish  practices  of  keeping 
the  passover,  and  the  other  ceremonies  enforced  by  Moses. 

Let  us  see  how  an  accusation  of  this  kind  works  in  the  hands 
of  the  Inquisition.  A  really  sincere  Catholic,  descended  from 
one  of  these  unhappy  families,  is  accused  and  arrested  by  the 
orders  of  the  Inquisition  ;  he  is  ordered  to  declare  his  property, 
which,  convinced  of  his  innocence,  and  expecting  soon  to  be 
released,  he  does  without  reservation.  But  hardly  has  the  key 
of  the  dungeon  turned  upon  him,  when  all  his  effects  are  seized 
and  sold  by  public  auction  ;  it  being  well  understood  that  they 
never  will  be  restored  to  him.  After  some  months'  confinement, 
he  is  called  into  the  Hall  of  Justice,  and  asked  if  he  knows 
why  he  is  in  prison ;  they  advise  him  earnestly  to  confess  and 
to  conceal  nothing,  as  it  is  the  only  way  by  which  he  can  obtain 
his  liberty.  He  declares  his  ignorance,  and  being  sent  for 
several  times,  persists  in  it.  The  period  of  the  auto-da- ft ,  or 
act  of  faith,  which  takes  place  ever}'  two  or  three  years  (that 
is,  the  public  execution  of  those  who  have  been  found  guilty 
by  the  Inquisition),  approaches.  The  public  accuser  then 
comes  forward,  stating  that  the  prisoner  has  been  accused  by 
a  number  of  witnesses  of  Judaism.  They  persuade  him  to  ac- 
knowledge his  guilt ;  he  persists  in  his  innocence  ;  they  then 
pass  a  sentence  on  him,  which  they  term  Convicto  Invotivo, 
which  means  "found  guilty,  but  will  not  confess  his  crime  "  ; 
and  he  is  sentenced  to  be  burnt  at  the  approaching  celebration. 
After  this  they  follow  him  to  his  cell,  and  exhort  him  to-confess 
his  guilt,  and  promise  that  if  he  does  confess  he  shall  be 
pardoned ;  and  these  appeals  are  continued  until  the  evening 
of  the  day  before  his  execution.  Terrified  at  the  idea  of  a 
294 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

painful  death,  the  wretch,  at  last,  to  save  his  life,  consents. 
He  is  called  into  the  Hall  of  Judgment,  confesses  the  crime 
that  he  has  not  committed,  and  imagines  that  he  is  now 
saved. — Alas  !  no ;  he  has  entangled  himself,  and  cannot 
escape. 

"  You  acknowledge  that  you  have  been  guilty  of  observing 
the  laws  of  Moses.  These  ceremonies  cannot  be  performed 
alone;  you  cannot  have  eaten  the  Paschal  lamb  alone;  tell 
us  immediately  who  were  those  who  assisted  at  those  cere- 
monies, or  your  life  is  still  forfeited,  and  the  stake  is  prepared 
for  you." 

Thus  has  he  accused  himself  without  gaining  anything,  and 
if  he  wishes  to  save  his  life,  he  must  accuse  others ;  and  who 
can  be  accused  but  his  own  friends  and  acquaintances  ?  nay,  in 
all  probability,  his  own  relations — his  brothers,  sisters,  wife, 
sons,  or  daughters — for  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  in  all  such 
practices  a  man  will  trust  only  his  own  family.  Whether  a 
man  confesses  his  guilt,  or  dies  asserting  his  innocence,  his 
worldly  property  is  in  either  case  confiscated  ;  but  it  is  of  great 
consequence  to  the  Inquisition  that  he  should  confess,  as  his 
act  of  confession,  with  his  signature  annexed,  is  publicly  read, 
and  serves  to  prove  to  the  world  that  the  Inquisition  is  impar- 
tial and  just;  nay,  more,  even  merciful,  as  it  pardons  those 
who  have  been  proved  to  be  guilty. 

At  Goa  the  accusations  of  sorcery  and  magic  were  much 
more  frequent  than  at  the  Inquisitions  at  other  places,  arising 
from  the  customs  and  ceremonies  of  the  Hindoos  being  very 
much  mixed  up  with  absurd  superstitions.  These  people,  and 
the  slaves  from  other  parts,  very  often  embraced  Christianity 
to  please  their  masters ;  but  since,  if  they  had  been  baptized 
and  were  afterwards  convicted  of  any  crime,  they  were 
sentenced  to  the  punishment  by  fire,  whereas  if  they  had 
not  been  baptized,  they  were  only  punished  by  whipping, 
imprisonment,  or  the  galleys,  upon  this  ground  alone  many 
re/used  to  embrace  Christianity. 

We  have  now  detailed  all  that  we  consider,  up  to  the 
present,  necessary  for  the  information  of  the  reader ;  all  that 
is  omitted  he  will  gather  as  we  proceed  with  our  history. 


295 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

A.  FEW  hours  after  Amine  had  been  in  the  dungeon,  the 
jailers  entered :  without  speaking  to  her  they  let  down  her 
soft  silky  hair,  and  cut  it  close  off.  Amine,  with  her  lip 
curled  in  contempt,  and  without  resistance  and  expostulation, 
allowed  them  to  do  their  work.  They  finished,  and  she  was 
again  left  to  her  solitude. 

The  next  day  the  jailers  entered  her  cell,  and  ordered  her  to 
bare  her  feet,  and  follow  them.  She  looked  at  them,  and  they 
at  her.  "  If  you  do  not,  we  must,"  observed  one  of  the  men, 
who  was  moved  by  her  youth  and  beauty.  Amine  did  as  she 
was  desired,  and  was  led  into  the  Hall  of  Justice,  where  she 
found  only  the  Grand  Inquisitor  and  the  secretary. 

The  Hall  of  Justice  was  a  long  room  with  lofty  windows  on 
each  side,  and  also  at  the  end  opposite  to  the  door  through 
which  she  bad  been  led  in.  In  the  centre,  on  a  raised  dais,  was 
a  long  table  covered  with  a  cloth  of  alternate  blue  and  fawn- 
coloured  stripes  ;  and  at  the  end  opposite  to  where  Amine  was 
brought  in,  was  raised  an  enormous  crucifix,  with  a  carved 
image  of  our  Saviour.  The  jailer  pointed  to  a  small  bench, 
and  intimated  to  Amine  that  she  was  to  sit  down. 

After  a  scrutiny  of  some  moments,  the  secretary  spoke — 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  " 

"  Amine  Vanderdecken." 

"Of  what  country?" 

"  My  husband  is  of  the  Low  Countries ;  I  am  from  the 
East." 

"  What  is  your  husband  ?  " 

"  The  captain  of  a  Dutch  Indiaman." 

"  How  came  you  here  ?  " 

"  His  vessel  was  wrecked,  and  we  were  separated." 

"  Whom  do  you  know  here  ?  " 

«  Father  Mathias." 

"  What  property  have  you  ?  " 
'  "  None ;  it  is  my  husband's." 

u  Where  is  it  ?  " 

"  In  the  custody  of  Father  Mathias." 

*  Are  you  aware  why  you  are  brought  here?" 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

"How  should  I  be?"  replied  Amine  evasively;  "tell  m« 
what  am  I  accused  of?" 

"  You  must  know  whether  you  have  clone  wrong  or  not.  You 
had  better  confess  all  your  conscience  accuses  you  of." 

"  My  conscience  does  not  accuse  me  of  doing  wrong." 

"  Then  you  will  confess  nothing  ?  " 

"  By  your  own  showing,  I  have  nothing  to  confess." 

"  You  say  you  are  from  the  East :  are  you  a  Christian  ?  " 

"  I  reject  your  creed." 

"  You  are  married  to  a  Catholic  ?  " 

"Yes!  a  true  Catholic." 

"  Who  married  you  ?  " 

«  Father  Seysen,  a  Catholic  priest" 

"  Did  you  enter  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church  ? — did  he 
venture  to  marry  you  without  your  being  baptized  ?  " 

"  Some  ceremony  did  take  place  which  I  consented  to." 

"  It  was  baptism,  was  it  not  ?  " 

"  I  believe  it  was  so  termed." 

"  And  now  you  say  that  you  reject  the  creed  ?  " 

"Since  I  have  witnessed  the  conduct  of  those  who  profess 
it,  I  do.  At  the  time  of  my  marriage  I  was  disposed  to- 
wards it."  ' 

"What  is  the  amount  of  your  property  in  the  Father 
Mathias's  hands  ?  " 

"  Some  hundreds  of  dollars — he  knows  exactly." 

The  Grand  Inquisitor  rang  a  bell ;  the  jailers  entered,  and 
Amine  was  led  back  to  her  dungeon. 

"  Why  should  they  ask  so  often  about  my  money  ?  "  mused 
Amine  ;  "  if  they  require  it  they  may  take  it.  What  is  their 
power  ?  What  would  they  do  with  me  ?  Well,  well,  a  few 
days  will  decide."  A  few  days ! — no,  no,  Amine  ;  years, 
perhaps,  would  have  passed  without  decision,  but  that  in 
four  months  from  the  date  of  your  incarceration,  the  auto- 
da-fe,  which  had  not  been  celebrated  for  upwards  of  three 
years,  was  to  take  place,  and  there  was  not  a  sufficient 
number  of  those  who  were  to  undergo  the  last  punishment 
to  render  the  ceremony  imposing.  A  few  more  were  required 
for  the  stake,  or  you  would  not  have  escaped  from  those 
dungeons  so  soon.  As  it  was,  a  month  of  anxiety  and 
suspense,  almost  insupportable,  had  to  be  passed  away  before 
Amine  was  again  summoned  to  the  Hall  of  Justice. 
297 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Amine,  at  the  time  we  have  specified,  was  again  introduced 
to  the  Hall  of  Justice,  and  was  again  asked  if  she  would  con- 
fess. Irritated  at  her  long  confinement  and  the  injustice  of 
the  proceedings,  she  replied,  "  I  have  told  you  once  for  all 
that  I  have  nothing  to  confess ;  do  with  me  as  you  will,  but 
be  quick." 

"  Will  torture  oblige  you  to  confess  ? " 

"  Try  me,"  replied  Amine  firmly,  "  try  me,  cruel  men,  and 
if  you  gain  but  one  word  from  me,  then  call  me  craven.  I  am 
but  a  woman,  but  I  dare  you — I  defy  you  !  " 

It  was  seldom  that  such  expressions  fell  upon  the  ears  of 
her  judges,  and  still  more  seldom  that  a  countenance  was 
lighted  up  with  such  determination.  But  the  torture  was 
never  applied  until  after  the  accusation  had  been  made  and 
answered. 

"We  shall  see,"  said  the  Grand  Inquisitor;  "take  her 
away." 

Amine  was  led  back  to  her  cell.  In  the  meantime,  Father 
Mathias  had  had  several  conferences  with  the  Inquisitor. 
Although,  in  his  wrath,  he  had  accused  Amine,  and  had  pro- 
cured the  necessary  witnesses  against  her,  he  now  felt  uneasy 
and  perplexed.  His  long  residence  with  her — her  invariable 
kindness  till  the  time  of  his  dismissal — his  knowledge  that  she 
had  never  embraced  the  faith — her  boldness  and  courage — 
nay,  her  beauty  and  youth,  all  worked  strongly  in  her  favour. 
His  only  object  now  was  to  persuade  her  to  confess  that  she 
was  wrong,  induce  her  to  embrace  the  faith,  and  save  her. 
With  this  view  he  had  obtained  permission  from  the  Holy 
Office  to  enter  her  dungeon  and  reason  with  her,  a  special 
favour  which,  for  many  reasons,  they  could  not  well  refuse 
him.  It  was  on  the  third  day  after  her  second  examination, 
that  the  bolts  were  removed  at  an  unusual  hour,  and  Father 
Mathias  entered  the  cell,  which  was  again  barred,  and  he  was 
left  alone  with  Amine.  "  My  child  !  my  child  !"  exclaimed 
Father  Mathias,  with  sorrow  in  his  countenance. 

"  Nay,  father,  this  is  mockery.  It  is  you  who  brought  me 
here — leave  me." 

"  I  brought  you  here,  'tis  true ;  but  I  would  now  remove 
you,  if  you  will  permit  me,  Amine." 

"  Most  willingly  ;  I'll  follow  you." 

"Nay,  nay;  there  is  much  to  talk  over,  much  to  be  done. 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

This  is  not  a  dungeon   from  which  people  can   escape   so 
easily." 

"  Then  tell  me  what  have  you  to  say ;  and  what  it  is  must 
be  done  ?  " 

"  I  will." 

"  But  stop ;  before  you  say  one  word,  ansM*er  me  one 
question  as  you  hope  for  bliss.  Have  you  heard  aught  of 
Philip  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  have.     He  is  well." 

"  And  where  is  he  ?  " 

"  He  will  soon  be  here." 

"  God,  I  thank  Thee  !     Shall  I  see  him,  father  ?  " 

"  That  must  depend  upon  yourself." 

"Upon  myself?  Then  tell  me,  quickly,  what  would  they 
have  me  do  ?  " 

"  Confess  your  sins — your  crimes." 

"  What  sins  ? — what  crimes  ?  " 

"  Have  you  not  dealt  with  evil  beings,  invoked  the  spirits, 
and  gained  the  assistance  of  those  who  are  not  of  this  world?" 

Amine  made  no  reply. 

"  Answer  me.     Do  you  not  confess  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  confess  to  have  done  anything  wrong." 

"This  is  useless.  You  were  seen  by  me  and  others.  What 
will  avail  your  denial  ?  Are  you  aware  of  the  punishment 
which  most  surely  awaits  you,  if  you  do  not  confess  and  become 
a  member  of  our  Church  ?  " 

"  W'hy  am  I  to  become  a  member  of  your  Church  ?  Do 
you  then  punish  those  who  refuse  ?  " 

"  No ;  had  you  not  already  consented  to  receive  baptism, 
you  would  not  have  been  asked  to  become  so  ;  but,  having 
been  baptized,  you  must  now  become  a  member,  or  be  sup- 
posed to  fall  back  into  heresy." 

"I  knew  not  the  nature  of  your  baptism  at  that  time." 

"  Granted  ;  but  you  consented  to  it." 

"  Be  it  so.  But  pray,  what  may  be  the  punishment  if  I 
refuse  ? " 

"  You  will  be  burnt  alive  at  the  stake  ;  nothing  will  save 
you.  Hear  me,  Amine  Vanderdecken  :  when  next  summoned, 
you  must  confess  all ;  and,  asking  pardon,  request  to  be 
received  into  the  Church ;  then  will  you  be  saved,  and  you 

will " 

-299 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

"What?" 

"  Again  be  clasped  in  Philip's  arms." 

"  My  Philip — my  Philip  ! — you  indeed  press  me  hard  ;  but, 
father,  if  I  confess  I  am  wrong,  when  I  feel  that  I  am 

"  Feel  that  you  are  not ! " 

"  Yes.  I  invoked  my  mother's  assistance  ;  she  gave  it  me 
in  a  dream.  Would  a  mother  have  assisted  her  daughter  if 
it  were  wrong  ?  " 

"  It  was  not  your  mother,  but  a  fiend  who  took  her  like- 
ness." 

"  It  was  my  mother.  Again  you  ask  me  to  say  that  I 
believe  that  which  I  cannot." 

"  That  which  you  cannot  1  Amine  Vanderdecken,  be  not 
obstinate." 

"  I  am  not  obstinate,  good  father.  Have  you  not  offered 
me  what  is  to  me  beyond  all  price,  that  I  should  again  be  in 
the  arms  of  my  husband.  Can  I  degrade  myself  to  a  lie  ? — 
not  for  life,  or  liberty,  or  even  my  Philip." 

"  Amine  Vanderdecken,  if  you  will  confess  your  crime  be- 
fore you  are  accused,  you  will  have  done  much ;  after  your 
accusation  has  been  made,  it  will  be  of  little  avail." 

"  It  will  not  be  done,  either  before  or  after,  father.  What 
I  have  done  I  have  done,  but  a  crime  it  is  not  to  me  and 
mine  ;  with  you  it  may  be,  but  I  am  not  of  yours." 

"  Recollect  also  that  you  peril  your  husband,  for  having 
wedded  with  a  sorceress.  Forget  not,  to-morrow  I  will  see 
you  again." 

"  My  mind  is  troubled,"  replied  Amine.  "  Leave  me, 
father,  it  will  be  a  kindness." 

Father  Mathias  quitted  the  cell,  pleased  with  the  last  words 
of  Amine.  The  idea  of  her  husband's  danger  seemed  to  have 
startled  her. 

Amine  threw  herself  down  on  the  mattress  in  the  corner 
of  the  cell,  and  hid  her  face. 

"  Burnt  alive ! "  exclaimed  she,  after  a  time,  sitting  up 
and  passing  her  hands  over  her  forehead.  "  Burnt  alive  ' 
and  these  are  Christians.  This  then  was  the  cruel  death 
foretold  by  that  creature  Schriften — foretold — yes,  and  there- 
fore must  be — it  is  my  destiny — I  cannot  save  myself.  If 
1  confess,  then  I  confess  that  Philip  is  wedded  to  a  sor« 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

ceress,  and  he  will  be  punished  too.  No,  never — never; 
I  can  suffer ;  'tis  cruel — 'tis  horrible  to  think  of, — but  'twill 
soon  be  over.  God  of  my  fathers,  give  me  strength  against 
these  wicked  men,  and  enable  me  to  bear  all,  for  my  dear 
Philip's  sake." 

The  next  evening,  Father  Mathias  again  made  his  appear- 
ance. He  found  Amine  calm  and  collected  :  she  refused  to 
listen  to  his  voice  or  follow  his  injunctions.  His  last  obser- 
vation, that  "  her  husband  would  be  in  peril  if  she  was  found 
guilty  of  sorcery,"  had  steeled  her  heart,  and  she  had 
determined  that  neither  torture  nor  the  stake  should  make 
her  confess  the  act.  The  priest  left  the  cell,  sick  at  heart ; 
he  now  felt  miserable  at  the  idea  of  Amine's  perishing  by  so 
dreadful  a  death  ;  accused  himself  of  precipitation,  and  wished 
that  he  had  never  seen  Amine,  whose  constancy  and  courage, 
although  in  error,  excited  his  admiration  and  his  pity.  And 
then  he  thought  of  Philip,  who  had  treated  him  so  kindly — 
how  could  he  meet  him  ?  And  if  he  asked  for  his  wife,  what 
answer  could  he  give  ? 

Another  fortnight  passed,  when  Amine  was  again  summoned 
to  the  Hall  of  Judgment,  and  again  asked  if  she  confessed 
her  crimes.  Upon  her  refusal,  the  accusations  against  her 
•were  read.  She  was  accused  by  Father  Mathias  with  prac- 
tising forbidden  arts,  and  the  depositions  of  the  boy  Pedro  and 
the  other  witnesses  were  read.  In  his  zeal,  Father  Mathias 
also  stated  that  he  had  found  her  guilty  of  the  same  practices 
at  Terneuse ;  and,  moreover,  that  in  the  violent  storm,  when 
all  expected  to  perish,  she  had  remained  calm  and  courageous, 
and  told  the  captain  that  they  would  be  saved ;  which  could 
only  have  been  known  by  an  undue  spirit  of  prophecy,  given 
by  evil  spirits.  Amine's  lip  curled  in  derision  when  she  heard 
the  last  accusation.  She  was  asked  if  she  had  any  defence 
to  make. 

"  What  defence  can  be  offered,"  replied  she,  "  to  such 
accusations  as  these  ?  Witness  the  last — because  I  was  not 
so  craven  as  the  Christians,  I  am  accused  of  sorcery.  The  old 
dotard  !  but  I  will  expose  him.  Tell  me,  if  one  knows  that 
sorcery  is  used,  and  conceals  or  allows  it,  is  he  not  a  partici- 
pator, and  equally  guilty  ?  " 

"  He  is,"  replied  the  Inquisitor,  anxiously  awaiting  the 
result. 

301 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"Then  I  denounce —  -"  and  Amine  was  about  to  reveal 
that  Philip's  mission  was  known,  and  not  forbidden  by  Fathers 
Mathias  and  Seysen ;  when,  recollecting  that  Philip  would  be 
implicated,  she  stopped. 

"  Denounce  whom  ?  "  inquired  the  Inquisitor. 

"  No  one/'  replied  Amine,  folding  her  arms  and  dropping 
her  head. 

"  Speak,  woman." 

Amine  made  no  answer. 

"  The  torture  will  make  you  speak." 

"  Never!"  replied  Amine.  "  Never  !  Torture  me  to  death, 
if  you  choose  ;  I  prefer  it  to  a  public  execution  ! " 

The  Inquisitor  and  the  secretary  consulted  a  short  time. 
Convinced  that  Amine  would  adhere  to  her  resolution,  and 
requiring  her  for  public  execution,  they  abandoned  the  idea  of 
the  torture. 

"  Do  you  confess  ?  "  inquired  the  Inquisitor. 

"No,"  replied  Amine  firmly. 

"  Then  take  her  away." 

The  night  before  the  auto-da-ft,  Father  Mathias  again 
entered  the  cell  of  Amine,  but  all  his  endeavours  to  convert 
her  were  useless. 

"To-morrow  will  end  it  all,  father,"  replied  Amine;  "leave 
me — I  would  be  alone." 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

W^E  must  now  return  to  Philip  and  Krantz.  When  the  latter 
retired  from  the  presence  of  the  Portuguese  commandant,  he 
communicated  to  Philip  what  had  taken  place,  an  1  the  fabu- 
lous tale  which  he  had  invented  to  deceive  the  commandant. 
"  I  said  that  you  alone  knew  where  the  treasure  was  con- 
cealed," continued  Krantz,  "that  you  might  be  sent  for,  for 
in  all  probability  he  will  keep  me  as  a  hostage:  but  never  mind 
that ;  I  must  take  my  chance.  Do  you  contrive  to  escape 
somehow  or  other,  and  rejoin  Amine." 

"Not  so,"  rejoined  Philip;  "you  must  go  witli  me,  my 
friend :  I  feel  that,  should  I  part  with  you,  happiness  would 
no  longer  be  in  store  for  me." 

302 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"Nonsense — that  is  but  an  idle  feeling;  besides,  I  will 
evade  him  somehow  or  another." 

"  I  will  not  show  the  treasure  unless  you  go  with  me." 

"  Well — you  may  try  it,  at  all  events." 

A  low  tap  at  the  door  was  heard.  Philip  rose  and  opened  it 
(for  they  had  retired  to  rest),  and  Pedro  came  in.  Looking 
carefully  round  him,  and  then  shutting  the  door  softly,  he  put 
his  finger  on  his  lips,  to  enjoin  them  to  silence.  He  then  in  a 
whisper  told  them  what  he  had  overheard.  "  Contrive,  if  pos- 
sible, that  I  go  with  you,"  continued  he.  "I  must  leave  you 
now ;  he  still  paces  his  room."  And  Pedro  slipped  out  of  the 
door,  and  crawled  stealthily  away  along  the  ramparts. 

"The  treacherous  little  rascal!  But  we  will  circumvent  him 
if  possible,"  said  Krantz,  in  a  low  tone.  "  Yes,  Philip,  you  are 
right ;  we  must  both  go,  for  you  will  require  my  assistance.  I 
must  persuade  him  to  go  himself.  I'll  think  of  it — so,  Philip, 
good  night." 

The  next  morning  Philip  and  Krantz  were  summoned  to 
breakfast ;  the  commandant  received  them  with  smiles  and 
urbanity.  To  Philip  he  was  peculiarly  courteous.  As  soon 
as  the  repast  was  over,  he  thus  communicated  to  him  his 
intentions  and  wishes  : — 

"  Signor,  I  have  been  reflecting  upon  what  your  friend  told 
me^  and  the  appearance  of  the  spectre  yesterday,  which 
created  such  confusion  ;  it  induced  me  to  behave  with  a  rash- 
ness for  which  I  must  now  offer  my  most  sincere  apologies. 
The  reflections  which  I  have  made,  joined  with  the  feelings  of 
devotion  which  must  be  in  the  heart  of  every  true  Catholic, 
have  determined  me,  with  your  assistance,  to  obtain  this 
treasure  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Church.  It  is  my  proposal 
that  you  should  take  a  party  of  soldiers  under  your  orders, 
proceed  to  the  island  on  which  it  is  deposited,  and  having 
obtained  it,  return  here.  I  will  detain  any  vessel  which  may 
in  the  meantime  put  into  the  roadstead,  and  you  shall  then 
be  the  bearers  of  the  treasure  and  of  my  letters  to  Goa.  This 
will  give  you  an  honourable  introduction  to  the  authorities, 
and  enable  you  to  pass  away  your  time  there  in  the  most 
agreeable  manner.  You  will  also,  signer,  be  restored  to  your 
wife,  whose  charms  had  such  an  effect  upon  me  ;  and  for  men* 
tion  of  whose  name  in  the  very  unceremonious  manner  which 
I  did,  I  must  excuse  myself  upon  the  ground  of  total  ignor- 
303 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

ance  of  who  she  was,  or  of  her  being  in  any  way  connected 
with  your  honourable  person.  If  these  measures  suit  you, 
signor,  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  give  orders  to  that  effect." 

"  As  a  good  Catholic  myself,"  replied  Philip,  "  I  shall  be 
most  happy  to  point  out  the  spot  where  the  treasure  is 
concealed,  and  restore  it  to  the  Church.  Your  apologies 
relative  to  my  wife  I  accept  with  pleasure,  being  aware  that 
your  conduct  proceeded  from  ignorance  of  her  situation  and 
rank  ;  but  I  do  not  exactly  see  my  way  clear.  You  propose 
a  party  of  soldiers.  Will  they  obey  me  ?  Are  they  to  be 
trusted  ?  I  shall  have  only  myself  and  friend  against  them, 
and  will  they  be  obedient?" 

"  No  fear  of  that,  signor,  they  are  well  disciplined  ;  there  is 
not  even  occasion  for  your  friend  to  go  with  you.  I  wish 
to  retain  him  with  me,  to  keep  me  company  during  your 
absence." 

"  Nay  !  that  I  must  object  to,"  replied  Philip ;  "  I  will  not 
trust  myself  alone." 

"  Perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to  give  an  opinion  on  this  sub- 
ject," observed  Krantz.  "  I  see  no  reason,  if  my  friend  goes 
accompanied  with  a  party  of  soldiers  only,  why  I  should  not 
go  with  him  ;  but  I  consider  it  would  be  unadvisable  that  he 
proceed  in  the  way  the  commandant  proposes,  either  with  or 
without  me.  You  must  recollect,  commandant,  that  it  is  no 
trifling  sum  which  is  to  be  carried  away  ;  that  these  men  have 
been  detained  many  years  in  this  country,  and  are  anxious  to 
return  home.  When,  therefore,  they  find  themselves  with 
only  two  strangers  with  them — away  from  your  authority,  and 
in  possession  of  a  large  sum  of  money — will  not  the  temptation 
be  too  strong  ?  They  will  only  have  to  run  down  the  southern 
channel,  gain  the  port  of  Bantam,  and  they  will  be  safe  ;  having 
obtained  both  freedom  and  wealth.  To  send,  therefore,  my 
friend  and  me,  would  be  to  send  us  to  almost  certain  death ; 
but  if  you  were  to  go,  commandant,  then  the  danger  would 
no  longer  exist.  Your  presence  and  your  authority  would 
control  them ;  and,  whatever  their  wishes  or  thoughts  might 
be,  they  would  quail  before  the  flash  of  your  eye." 

"Very  true— very  true,"  replied  Philip— "all  this  did  not 
occur  to  me." 

Nor  had  it  occurred  to  the  commandant ;  but,  when  pointed 
out,  the  force  of  these  suggestions  immediately  struck  him, 
304 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

and  long  before  Krantz  had  finished  speaking,  he  had  resolved 
to  go  himself. 

"  Well,  signers,"  replied  he,  "  I  am  always  ready  to  accede 
to  your  wishes  ;  and  since  you  consider  my  presence  necessary, 
and  as  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  chance  of  another  attack 
from  the  Ternate  people  just  now,  I  will  take  upon  myself 
the  responsibility  of  leaving  the  fort  for  a  few  days  under  the 
charge  of  my  lieutenant,  while  we  do  this  service  to  holy 
Mother  Church.  I  have  already  sent  for  one  of  the  native 
vessels,  which  are  large  and  commodious,  and  will,  with  your 
permission,  embark  to-morrow." 

"  Two  vessels  will  be  better,"  observed  Krantz ;  "  in  the 
first  place,  in  case  of  an  accident ;  and  next,  because  we 
can  embark  all  the  treasure  in  one  with  ourselves,  and  put  a 
portion  of  the  soldiers  in  the  other ;  so  that  we  may  be  in 
greater  force,  in  case  of  the  sight  of  so  much  wealth  stimulat- 
ing them  to  insubordination." 

"True,  signer,  we  will  have  two  vessels;  your  advice  is 
good." 

Everything  was  thus  satisfactorily  arranged,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  their  wish  that  Pedro  should  accompany  them  on  their 
expedition.  They  were  debating  how  this  should  be  brought 
on  the  tapis,  when  the  soldier  came  to  them,  and  stated  that 
the  commandant  had  ordered  him  to  be  of  the  party,  and  that 
he  was  to  offer  his  services  to  the  two  strangers. 

On  the  ensuing  day  everything  was  prepared.  Ten  soldiers 
and  a  corporal  had  been  selected  by  the  commandant ;  and  it 
required  but  little  time  to  put  into  the  vessels  the  provisions 
and  other  articles  which  were  required.  At  daylight  they  em- 
barked— the  commandant  and  Philip  in  one  boat ;  Krantz, 
with  the  corporal  and  Pedro,  in  the  other.  The  men,  who 
had  been  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  object  of  the  expedition, 
were  now  made  acquainted  with  it  by  Pedro,  and  a  long 
whispering  took  place  between  them,  much  to  the  satisfaction 
of  Krantz,  who  was  aware  that  the  mutiny  would  soon  be  ex- 
cited, when  it  was  understood  that  those  who  composed  the 
expedition  were  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  avarice  of  the  com- 
mandant. The  weather  being  fine,  they  sailed  on  during 
the  night,  passed  the  island  of  Ternate  at  ten  leagues'  dis- 
tance, and  before  morning  were  among  the  cluster  of  isles, 
the  southernmost  of  which  was  the  one  on  which  the  treasure 
305  y 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

had  been  buried.  On  the  second  night  the  vessels  were 
beached  upon  a  small  island  ;  and  then,  for  the  first  time, 
a  communication  took  place  between  the  soldiers  who  had 
been  in  the  boat  with  Pedro  and  Krantz,  and  those  who 
had  been  embarked  with  the  commandant.  Philip  and 
Krantz  had  also  an  opportunity  of  communicating  apart  for 
a  short  time. 

When  they  made  sail  the  next  morning,  Pedro  spoke 
openly;  he  told  Krantz  that  the  soldiers  in  the  boat  had 
made  up  their  minds,  and  that  he  had  no  doubt  that  the 
others  would  do  so  before  night ;  although  they  had  not 
decidedly  agreed  upon  joining  them  in  the  morning  when 
they  were  embarked.  That  they  would  despatch  the  com- 
mandant, and  then  proceed  to  Batavia,  and  from  thence 
obtain  a  passage  home  to  Europe. 

"  Can  you  accomplish  your  end  without  murder  ?  " 

"  Yes,  we  could  ;  but  not  our  revenge.  You  do  not  know 
the  treatment  which  we  have  received  from  his  hands ;  and 
sweet  as  the  money  will  be  to  us,  his  death  will  be  even 
sweeter.  Besides,  has  he  not  determined  to  murder  us  all 
in  some  way  or  another?  It  is  but  justice.  No,  no;  if 
there  was  no  >ther  knife  ready — mine  is." 

"  And  so  are  all  ours ! "  cried  the  other  soldiers,  putting 
their  hands  to  their  weapons. 

One  more  day's  sail  brought  them  within  twenty  miles  of 
the  island  ;  for  Philip  knew  his  landmarks  well.  Again  thev 
landed,  and  all  retired  to  rest,  the  commandant  dreaming  of 
wealth  and  revenge  ;  while  it  was  arranged  that  the  digging 
up  of  the  treasure  which  he  coveted  should  be  the  signal  for 
his  death. 

Once  more  did  they  embark,  and  the  commandant  heeded 
not  the  dark  and  lowering  faces  with  which  he  was  surrounded. 
He  was  all  gaiety  and  politeness.  Swiftly  did  they  skim  over 
the  dark  blue  sea,  between  the  beautiful  islands  with  which  it 
was  studded  ;  and  before  the  sun  was  three  hours  high,  Philip 
recognised  the  one  sought  after,  and  pointed  out  to  the  com- 
mandant the  notched  cocoa-nut  tree,  which  served  as  a  guide 
to  the  spot  where  the  money  had  been  concealed.  They 
landed  on  a  sandy  beach,  and  the  shovels  were  ordered  to  be 
brought  on  shore  by  the  impatient  little  officer,  who  little 
thought  that  every  moment  of  time  gained  \vas  but  so  much 


THE    PHANTOM   SHIP 

time  lost  to  him,  and  that  while  he  was  smiling  and  meditating 
treachery,  that  others  could  do  the  same. 

The  party  arrived  under  the  tree — the  shovels  soon  re- 
moved the  light  sand,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  treasure  was 
exposed  to  view.  Bag  after  bag  was  handed  up,  and  the 
loose  dollars  collected  into  heaps.  Two  of  the  soldiers  had 
been  sent  to  the  vessels  for  sacks  to  put  the  loose  dollars  in, 
aiul  the  men  had  desisted  from  their  labour ;  they  laid  aside 
their  spades,  looks  were  exchanged,  and  all  were  ready. 

The  commandant  turned  round  to  call  to  and  hasten  the 
movements  of  the  men  who  had  been  sent  for  the  sacks,  when 
three  or  four  knives  simultaneously  pierced  him  through  the 
back  ;  he  fell,  and  was  expostulating,  when  they  were  again 
buried  in  his  bosom,  and  he  lay  a  corpse.  Philip  and  Krantz 
remained  silent  spectators — the  knives  were  drawn  out,  wiped, 
and  replaced  in  their  sheaths. 

"  He  has  met  his  reward,"  said  Krantz. 

"Yes," exclaimed  the  Portuguese  soldiers — ''justice,  nothing 
but  justice." 

"Signers,  you  shall  have  your  share,'  observed  Pedro; 
"shall  they  not,  my  men?" 

"Yes!  yes!" 

"  Not  one  dollar,  my  good  friends,"  replied  Philip ;  "  take 
all  the  money,  and  may  you  be  happy  ;  all  we  ask  is  your 
assistance  to  proceed  on  our  way  to  where  we  are  about  to  go. 
And  now,  before  you  divide  your  money,  oblige  me  by  bury- 
ing the  body  of  that  unfortunate  man." 

The  soldiers  obeyed.  Resuming  their  shovels,  they  soon 
scooped  out  a  shallow  grave :  the  commandant's  body  was 
thrown  in,  and  covered  up  from  sight. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

SCARCELY  had  the  soldiers  performed  their  task,  and  thrown 
down  their  shovels,  when  they  commenced  an  altercation.  It 
appeared  that  this  money  was  to  be  again  the  cause  of  slaughter 
and  bloodshed.  Philip  and  Krantz  determined  to  sail  imme- 
diately in  one  of  the  peroquas,  and  leave  them  to  settle  their 
disputes  as  they  pleased.  He  asked  permission  of  the  soldiers 
307 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

lo  take  from  the  provisions  and  water,  of  which  there  was 
ample  supply,  a  larger  proportion  than  was  their  share;  stating 
that  he  and  Krantz  had  a  long  voyage  and  would  require 
it,  and  pointing  out  to  them  that  there  were  plenty  of  cocoa- 
nuts  for  their  support.  The  soldiers,  who  thought  of  nothing 
but  their  newly  acquired  wealth,  allowed  him  to  do  as  he 
pleased ;  and  having  hastily  collected  as  many  cocoa-nuts  as 
they  could,  to  add  to  their  stock  of  provisions,  before  noon 
Philip  and  Krantz  had  embarked,  and  made  sail  in  the 
peroqua,  leaving  the  soldiers  with  their  knives  again  drawn, 
and  so  busy  in  their  angry  altercation  as  to  be  heedless  of 
their  departure. 

"  There  will  be  the  same  scene  over  again,  I  expect,"  ob- 
served Krantz,  as  the  vessel  parted  swiftly  from  the  shore. 

"  I  have  little  doubt  of  it ;  observe,  even  now,  they  are  at 
blows  and  stabs." 

"  If  I  were  to  name  the  spot,  it  should  be  the  '  Accursed 
hie.'  " 

"  Would  not  any  other  be  the  same,  with  so  much  to 
inflame  the  passions  of  men  ?  " 

"  Assuredly  ;  what  a  curse  is  gold  1 " 

"  And  what  a  blessing .  "  replied  Krantz.  "  I  am  sorry 
Pedro  is  left  with  them." 

"It  is  their  destiny,"  replied  Philip;  "so  let's  think  no 
more  of  them.  Now  what  do  you  propose  ?  With  this 
vessel,  small  as  she  is,  we  may  sail  over  the  seas  in  safety, 
and  we  have,  I  imagine,  provisions  sufficient  for  more  than 
a  month." 

"  My  idea  is,  to  run  into  the  track  of  the  vessels  going  to 
the  westward,  and  obtain  a  passage  to  Goa." 

"  And  if  we  do  not  meet  with  anv,  we  can,  at  all  events, 
proceed  up  the  Straits,  as  far  as  Pulo  Penang,  without  risk. 
There  we  may  safely  remain  until  a  vessel  passes." 

"  I  agree  with  you  ;  it  is  our  best,  nay,  our  only  place  ;  un- 
less, indeed,  we  were  to  proceed  to  Cochin,  where  junks  are 
always  leaving  for  Goa." 

"  But  that  would  be  out  of  our  way,  and  the  junks  cannot 
well  pass  us  in  the  Straits,  without  their  being  seen  by  us." 

They  had  no  difficulty  in  steering  their  course  ;  the  islands 
by  day,  and  the  clear  stars  by  night,  were  their  compass.  It 
is  true  that  they  did  not  follow  the  more  direct  track,  but 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

they  followed  the  more  secure,  working  up  the  smooth  waters, 
and  gaining  to  the  northward  more  than  to  the  west.  Many 
times  they  were  chased  by  the  Malay  proas,  which  infested 
the  islands,  but  the  swiftness  of  their  little  peroqua  was 
their  security;  indeed,  the  chase  was,  generally  speaking, 
abandoned  as  soon  as  the  smallness  of  the  vessel  was  made 
out  by  the  pirates,  who  expected  that  little  or  no  booty  was 
to  be  gained. 

That  Amine  and  Philip's  mission  was  the  constant  theme 
of  their  discourse  may  easily  be  imagined.  One  morning,  as 
they  were  sailing  between  the  isles,  with  less  wind  than  usual, 
Philip  observed — 

"  Krantz,  you  said  that  there  were  events  in  your  own  life, 
or  connected  with  it,  which  would  corroborate  the  mysterious 
tale  I  confided  to  you.  Will  you  now  tell  me  to  what  you 
referred  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "  I  have  often  thought  of 
doing  so,  but  one  circumstance  or  another  has  hitherto  pre- 
vented me ;  this  is,  however,  a  fitting  opportunity.  Prepare 
therefore  to  listen  to  a  strange  story,  quite  as  strange,  per- 
haps, as  your  own. 

"  I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  have  heard  people  speak 
of  the  Hartz  Mountains,"  observed  Krantz. 

"  I  have  never  heard  people  speak  of  them,  that  I  can 
recollect,"  replied  Philip ;  "  but  I  have  read  of  them  in  some 
book,  and  of  the  strange  things  which  have  occurred  there." 

"  It  is  indeed  a  wild  region,"  rejoined  Krantz,  "and  many 
strange  tales  are  told  of  it ;  but  strange  as  they  are,  I  have 
good  reason  for  believing  them  to  be  true.  I  have  told  you, 
Philip,  that  I  fully  believe  in  your  communion  with  the  other 
world — that  I  credit  the  history  of  your  father,  and  the  lawful- 
ness of  your  mission  ;  for  that  we  are  surrounded,  impelled, 
and  worked  upon  by  beings  different  in  their  nature  from 
ourselves,  I  have  had  full  evidence,  as  you  will  acknowledge 
when  I  state  what  has  occurred  in  my  own  family.  Why  such 
malevolent  beings  as  I  am  about  to  speak  of  should  be  per- 
mitted to  interfere  with  us,  and  punish,  I  may  say,  compara- 
tively unoffending  mortals,  is  beyond  my  comprehension  ;  but 
that  they  are  so  permitted  is  most  certain." 

"The  great  principle  of  all  evil  fulfils  his  work  of  evil; 
why,  then,  not  the  other  minor  spirits  of  the  same  class  ?  " 
309 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

inquired  Philip.  "  What  matters  it  to  us  whether  we  are  tried 
by,  and  have  to  suffer  from,  the  enmity  of  our  fellow-mortals, 
or  whether  we  are  persecuted  by  beings  more  powerful  and 
more  malevolent  than  ourselves  ?  We  know  that  we  have 
to  work  out  our  salvation,  and  that  we  shall  be  judged 
according  to  our  strength  ;  if  then  there  be  evil  spirits  who 
delight  to  oppose  man,  there  sui'ely  must  be,  as  Amine  asserts, 
good  spirits,  whose  delight  is  to  do  him  service.  Whether, 
then,  we  have  to  struggle  against  our  passions  only,  or 
whether  we  have  to  struggle  not  only  against  our  passions, 
but  also  the  dire  influence  of  unseen  enemies,  we  ever  struggle 
with  the  same  odds  in  our  favour,  as  the  good  are  stronger 
than  the  evil  which  we  combat.  In  either  case  we  are  on 
the  vantage  ground,  whether,  as  in  the  first,  we  fight  the 
good  cause  single-handed,  or  as  in  the  second,  although 
opposed,  we  have  the  host  of  heaven  ranged  on  our  side. 
Thus  are  the  scales  of  Divine  justice  evenly  balanced,  and 
man  is  still  a  free  agent,  as  his  own  virtuous  or  vicious  pro- 
pensities must  ever  decide  whether  he  shall  gain  or  lose  the 
victory." 

"  Most  true,"  replied  Krantz,  "and  now  to  my  history. 

"  My  father  was  not  born,  or  originally  a  resident,  in  the 
Hartz  Mountains ;  he  was  a  serf  of  an  Hungarian  nobleman, 
of  great  possessions,  in  Transylvania  ;  but  although  a  serf,  he 
was  not  by  any  means  a  poor  or  illiterate  man.  In  fact,  he 
was  rich,  and  his  intelligence  and  respectability  were  such, 
that  he  had  been  raised  by  his  lord  to  the  stewardship ;  but, 
whoever  may  happen  to  be  born  a  serf,  a  serf  must  he  remain, 
even  though  he  become  a  wealthy  man :  and  such  was  the 
condition  of  my  father.  My  father  had  been  married  for 
about  five  years ;  and  by  his  marriage  had  three  children — 
my  eldest  brother  Caesar,  myself  (Hermann),  and  a  sister 
named  Marcella.  You  know,  Philip,  that  Latin  is  still  the 
language  spoken  in  that  country ;  and  that  will  account  for 
our  high-sounding  names.  My  mother  was  a  very  beautiful 
woman,  unfortunately  more  beautiful  than  virtuous ;  she  was 
seen  and  admired  by  the  lord  of  the  soil ;  my  father  was  sent 
away  upon  some  mission,  and  during  his  absence,  my  mother, 
flattered  by  the  attentions,  and  won  by  the  assiduities  of  this 
nobleman,  yielded  to  his  wishes.  It  so  happened  that  my 
father  returned  very  unexpectedly,  and  discovered  the  intrigue. 
310 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

The  evidence  of  my  mother's  shame  was  positive;  he  sur- 
prised her  in  the  company  of  her  seducer !  Carried  away  by 
the  impetuosity  of  his  feelings,  he  watched  the  opportunity 
of  a  meeting  taking  place  between  them,  and  murdered  both 
his  wife  and  her  seducer.  Conscious  that,  as  a  serf,  not  even 
the  provocation  which  he  had  received  would  be  allowed  as  a 
justification  of  his  conduct,  he  hastily  collected  together  what 
money  he  could  lay  his  hands  upon,  and,  as  we  were  then  in 
the  depth  of  winter,  he  put  his  horses  to  the  sleigh,  and  taking 
his  children  with  him,  he  set  off  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
and  was  far  away  before  the  tragical  circumstance  had  tran- 
spired. Aware  that  he  would  be  pursued,  and  that  he  had 
no  chance  of  escape  if  he  remained  in  any  portion  of  his  native 
country  (in  which  the  authorities  could  lay  hold  of  him),  he 
continued  his  flight  without  intermission  until  he  had  buried 
himself  in  the  intricacies  and  seclusion  of  the  Hartz  Moun- 
tains. Of  course,  all  that  I  have  now  told  you  I  learned 
afterwards.  My  oldest  recollections  are  knit  to  a  rude,  yet 
comfortable  cottage,  in  which  I  lived  with  my  father,  brother, 
and  sister.  It  was  on  the  confines  of  one  of  those  vast  forests 
which  cover  the  northern  part  of  Germany  ;  around  it  were  a 
few  acres  of  ground,  which,  during  the  summer  months,  my 
father  cultivated,  and  which,  though  they  yielded  a  doubtful 
harvest,  were  sufficient  for  our  support.  In  the  winter  we 
remained  much  indoors,  for,  as  my  father  followed  the  eh;  se, 
we  were  left  alone,  and  the  wolves  during  that  season  in- 
cessantly prowled  about.  My  father  had  purchased  the 
cottage,  and  land  about  it,  of  one  of  the  rude  foresters,  who 
gain  their  livelihood  partly  by  hunting,  and  partly  by  burning 
charcoal,  for  the  purpose  of  smelting  the  ore  from  the  neigh- 
bouring mines  ;  it  was  distant  about  two  miles  from  any  other 
habitation.  I  can  call  to  mind  the  whole  landscape  now  ; 
the  tall  pines  which  rose  up  on  the  mountain  above  us,  and 
the  wide  expanse  of  the  forest  beneath,  on  the  topmost 
boughs  and  heads  of  whose  trees  we  looked  down  from  our 
cottage,  as  the  mountain  below  us  rapidly  descended  into  the 
distant  valley.  In  summer  time  the  prospect  was  beautiful : 
but  during  the  severe  winter  a  more  desolate  scene  could 
not  well  be  imagined. 

"  I  said  that,  in  the  winter,  my  father  occupied  himself  with 
the  chase ;  every  day  he  left  us,  and  often  would  he  lock  the 
811 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

door,  that  we  might  not  leave  the  cottage.  He  had  no  one  to 
assist  him,  or  to  take  care  of  us — indeed,  it  was  not  easy  to 
find  a  female  servant  who  would  live  in  such  a  solitude  ;  but, 
could  he  have  found  one,  my  father  would  not  have  received 
her,  for  he  had  imbibed  a  horror  of  the  sex,  as  the  difference 
of  his  conduct  towards  us,  his  two  boys,  and  my  poor  little 
sister  Marcella  evidently  proved.  You  may  suppose  we  were 
sadly  neglected;  indeed,  we  suffered  much,  for  my  father, 
fearful  that  we  might  come  to  some  harm,  would  not  allow 
us  fuel  when  he  left  the  cottage  ;  and  we  were  obliged,  there- 
fore, to  creep  under  the  heaps  of  bears'  skins,  and  there  to 
keep  ourselves  as  warm  as  we  could  until  he  returned  in  the 
evening,  when  a  blazing  fire  was  our  delight.  That  my  father 
chose  this  restless  sort  of  life  may  appear  strange,  but  the 
fact  was,  that  he  could  not  remain  quiet ;  whether  from  the 
remorse  for  having  committed  murder,  or  from  the  misery 
consequent  on  his  change  of  situation,  or  from  both  combined, 
he  was  never  happy  unless  he  was  in  a  state  of  activity.  Chil- 
dren, however,  when  left  so  much  to  themselves,  acquire  a 
thoughtfulness  not  common  to  their  age.  So  it  was  with  us ; 
and  during  the  short  cold  days  of  winter,  we  would  sit  silent, 
longing  for  the  happy  hours  when  the  snow  would  melt  and 
the  leaves  would  burst  out,  and  the  birds  begin  their  songs, 
and  when  we  should  again  be  set  at  liberty. 

"Such  was  our  peculiar  ind  savage  sort  of  life  until  my 
brother  Caesar  was. nine,  myself  seven,  and  my  sister  five  years 
eld,  when  the  circumstances  occurred  on  which  is  based  the 
extraordinary  narrative  which  I  am  about  to  relate. 

"  One  evening  my  father  returned  home  rather  later  than 
usual ;  he  had  been  unsuccessful,  and,  as  the  weather  was  very 
severe,  and  many  feet  of  snow  were  upon  the  ground,  he  was 
not  only  very  cold,  but  in  a  very  bad  humour.  He  had  brought 
in  wood,  and  we  were  all  three  gladly  assisting  each  other  in 
blowing  on  the  embers  to  create  a  blaze,  when  he  caught 
poor  little  Marcella  by  the  arm  and  threw  her  aside  ;  the  child 
fell,  struck  her  mouth,  and  bled  very  much.  My  brother  ran 
to  raise  her  up.  Accustomed  to  ill-usage,  and  afraid  of  my 
father,  she  did  not  dare  to  cry,  but  looked  up  in  his  face  very 
piteously.  My  father  drew  his  stool  nearer  to  the  hearth, 
muttered  something  in  abuse  of  women,  and  busied  himself 
the  fire,  which  both  my  brother  and  I  had  deserted  when 
312 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

our  sister  was  so  unkindly  treated.  A  cheerful  blaze  was  soon 
the  result  of  his  exertions ;  but  we  did  not,  as  usual,  crowd 
round  it.  Marcella,  still  bleeding,  retired  to  a  corner,  and  my 
brother  and  I  took  our  seats  beside  her,  while  my  father  hung 
over  the  fire  gloomily  and  alone.  Such  had  been  our  position 
for  about  half-an-hour,  when  the  howl  of  a  wolf,  close  under 
the  window  of  the  cottage,  fell  on  our  ears.  My  father  started 
up,  and  seized  his  gun ;  the  howl  was  repeated,  he  examined 
the  priming,  and  then  hastily  left  the  cottage,  shutting  the 
door  after  him.  We  all  waited  (anxiously  listening),  for  we 
thought  that  if  he  succeeded  in  shooting  the  wolf,  he  would 
return  in  a  better  humour ;  and,  although  he  was  harsh  to  all 
of  us,  and  particularly  so  to  our  little  sister,  still  we  all  loved 
our  father,  and  loved  to  see  him  cheerful  and  happy,  for  what 
else  had  we  to  look  up  to  ?  And  I  may  here  observe,  that 
perhaps  there  never  were  three  children  who  were  fonder  of 
each  other ;  we  did  not,  like  other  children,  fight  and  dispute 
together ;  and  if,  by  chance,  any  disagreement  did  arise 
between  my  elder  brother  and  me,  little  Marcel  hi  would  run 
to  us,  and  kissing  us  both,  seal,  through  her  entreaties,  the 
peace  between  us.  Marcella  was  a  lovely,  amiable  child  ;  I 
can  recall  her  beautiful  features  even  now.  Alas  !  poor  little 
Marcella." 

"  She  is  dead,  then  ?  "  observed  Philip. 

"  Dead  !  yes,  dead  ! — but  how  did  she  die  ? — But  I  must 
not  anticipate,  Philip ;  let  me  tell  my  story. 

"  We  waited  for  some  time,  but  the  report  of  the  gun 
did  not  reach  us,  and  my  elder  brother  then  said,  '  Our 
father  has  followed  the  wolf,  and  will  not  be  back  for  some 
time.  Marcella,  let  us  wash  the  blood  from  your  mouth, 
and  then  we  will  leave  this  corner  and  go  to  the  fire  to 
warm  ourselves.' 

"  We  did  so,  and  remained  there  until  near  midnight,  every 
minute  wondering,  as  it  grew  later,  why  our  father  did  not 
return.  We  had  no  idea  that  he  was  in  any  danger,  but  we 
thought  that  he  must  have  chased  the  wolf  for  a  very  long 
time.  '  I  will  look  out  and  see  if  father  is  coming,'  said  my 
brother  Caesar,  going  to  the  door.  '  Take  care,'  said  Marcella, 
'  the  wolves  must  be  about  now,  and  we  cannot  kill  them, 
brother.'  My  brother  opened  the  door  very  cautiously,  and 
but  a  few  inches ;  he  peeped  out.  '  I  see  nothing/  said  he( 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

after  a  time,  and  once  more  he  joined  us  at  the  fire.  '  We 
have  had  no  supper/  said  I,  for  my  father  usually  cooked  the 
meal  as  soon  as  he  came  home  ;  and  during  his  absence  we 
had  nothing  but  the  fragments  of  the  preceding  day. 

" '  And  if  our  father  comes  home,  after  his  hunt,  Caesar,'  said 
Marcella,  '  he  will  be  pleased  to  have  some  supper  ;  let  us 
cook  it  for  him  and  for  ourselves.'  Caesar  climbed  upon  the 
stool,  and  reached  down  some  meat — I  forget  now  whether  it 
was  venison  or  bear's  meat,  but  we  cut  off  the  usual  quantity, 
and  proceeded  to  dress  it,  as  we  used  to  do  under  our  father's 
superintendence.  We  were  all  busy  putting  it  into  the  platters, 
before  the  fire,  to  await  his  coming,  when  we  heard  the  sound 
of  a  horn.  We  listened — there  was  a  noise  outside,  and  a 
minute  afterwards  my  father  entered,  ushered  in  a  young 
female,  and  a  large  dark  man  in  a  hunter's  dress. 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  now  relate  what  was  only  known  to 
me  many  years  afterwards.  When  my  father  had  left  the 
cottage,  he  perceived  a  large  white  wolf  about  thirty  yards 
from  him ;  as  soon  as  the  animal  saw  my  father,  it  retreated 
slowly,  growling  and  snarling.  My  father  followed ;  the 
animal  did  not  run,  but  always  kept  at  some  distance ;  and  my 
father  did  not  like  to  fire  until  he  was  pretty  certain  that  his 
ball  would  take  effect ;  thus  they  went  on  for  some  time,  the 
wolf  now  leaving  my  father  far  behind,  and  then  stopping  and 
snarling  defiance  at  him,  and  then,  again,  on  his  approach, 
setting  off  at  speed. 

''Anxious  to  shoot  the  animal  (for  the  white  wolf  is  very 
rare),  my  father  continued  the  pursuit  for  several  hours,  during 
which  he  continually  ascended  the  mountain. 

"  You  must  know,  Philip,  that  there  are  peculiar  spots  on 
those  mountains  which  are  supposed,  and,  as  my  story  will 
prove,  truly  supposed,  to  be  inhabited  by  the  evil  influences : 
they  are  well  known  to  the  huntsmen,  who  invariably  avoid 
them.  Now,  one  of  these  spots,  an  open  space  in  the  pine 
forest  above  us,  had  been  pointed  out  to  my  father  as  dangerous 
on  that  account.  But  whether  he  disbelieved  these  wild 
stories,  or  whether,  in  his  eager  pursuit  of  the  chase,  he  disre- 
garded them,  I  know  not ;  certain,  however,  it  is,  that  he  was 
decoyed  by  the  white  wolf  to  this  open  space,  when  the  animal 
appeared  to  slacken  her  speed.  My  father  approached,  came 
close  up  to  her,  raised  his  gun  to  his  shoulder,  and  was  about 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

to  fire,  when  the  wolf  suddenly  disappeared.  He  thought  that 
the  snow  on  the  ground  must  have  dazzled  his  sight,  and  he  let 
down  his  gun  to  look  for  the  beast— but  she  was  gone  ;  how  she 
could  have  escaped  over  the  clearance,  without  his  seeing  her, 
was  beyond  his  comprehension.  Mortified  at  the  ill-success  of 
his  chase,  he  was  about  to  retrace  his  steps,  when  he  heard 
the  distant  sound  of  a  horn.  Astonishment  at  such  a  sound 
— at  such  an  hour — in  such  a  wilderness,  made  him  forget  for 
the  moment  his  disappointment,  and  he  remained  riveted  to 
the  spot.  In  a  minute  the  horn  was  blown  a  second  time,  and 
at  no  great  distance  ;  my  father  stood  still,  and  listened  ;  a 
third  time  it  was  blown.  I  forget  the  term  used  to  express  it, 
but  it  was  the  signal  which,  my  father  well  knew,  implied  that 
the  party  was  lost  in  the  woods.  In  a  few  minutes  more  my 
father  beheld  a  man  on  horseback,  with  a  female  seated  on  the 
crupper,  enter  the  cleared  space,  and  ride  up  to  him.  At  first, 
my  father  called  to  mind  the  strange  stories  which  he  had 
heard  of  the  supernatural  beings  who  were  said  to  frequent 
these  mountains ;  but  the  nearer  approach  of  the  parties  satis- 
fied him  that  they  were  mortals  like  himself.  As  soon  as  they 
came  up  to  him,  the  man  who  guided  the  horse  accosted  him. 
*  Friend  hunter,  you  are  out  late,  the  better  fortune  for  us ; 
we  have  ridden  far,  and  are  in  fear  of  our  lives,  which  are 
eagerly  sought  after.  These  mountains  have  enabled  us  to 
elude  our  pursuers  ;  but  if  we  find  not  shelter  and  refresh- 
ment, that  will  avail  us  little,  as  we  must  perish  from  hunger 
and  the  inclemency  of  the  night.  My  daughter,  who  rides 
behind  me,  is  now  more  dead  than  alive — say,  can  you  assist 
us  in  our  difficulty  ? ' 

" '  My  cottage  is  some  few  miles  distant/  replied  my  father, 
'but  I  have  little  to  offer  you  besides  a  shelter  from  the 
weather ;  to  the  little  I  have  you  are  welcome.  May  I  ask 
whence  you  come  ? ' 

" '  Yes,  friend,  it  is  no  secret  now ;  we  have  escaped  from 
Transylvania,  where  my  daughter's  honour  and  my  life  were 
equally  in  jeopardy  ! ' 

"This  information  was  quite  enough  to  raise  an  interest 
in  my  father's  heart.  He  remembered  his  own  escape  :  he 
remembered  the  loss  of  his  wife's  honour,  and  the  tragedy  by 
which  it  was  wound  up.  He  immediately,  and  warmly,  offered 
all  the  assistance  wHlch  he  could  afford  them. 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

u<  There  is  no  time  to  be  lost,  then,  good  sir,'  observed  the 
horseman  ;  '  my  daughter  is  chilled  with  the  frost,  and  cannot 
hold  out  much  longer  against  the  severity  of  the  weather.' 

" '  Follow  me,'  replied  my  father,  leading  the  way  towards 
his  home. 

" <  I  was  lured  away  in  pursuit  of  a  large  white  wolf/  ob- 
served my  father ;  '  it  came  to  the  very  window  of  my  hut,  or 
I  should  not  have  been  out  at  this  time  of  night.' 

"'The  creature  passed  by  us  just  as  we  came  out  of  the 
wood,"  said  the  female,  in  a  silvery  tone. 

" '  I  was  nearly  discharging  my  piece  at  it,'  observed  the 
hunter ;  '  but  since  it  did  us  such  good  service,  I  am  glad  I 
allowed  it  to  escape.' 

"  In  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  during  which  my  father 
walked  at  a  rapid  pace,  the  party  arrived  at  the  cottage,  and, 
as  I  said  before,  came  in. 

" '  We  are  in  good  time,  apparently,'  observed  the  dark 
hunter,  catching  the  smell  of  the  roasted  meat,  as  he  walked 
to  the  fire  and  surveyed  my  brother  and  sister  and  myself. 
'  You  have  young  cooks  here,  Meinheer.'  '  I  am  glad  that  we 
shall  not  have  to  wait,'  replied  my  father.  *  Come,  mistress, 
seat  yourself  by  the  fire ;  you  require  warmth  after  your  cold 
ride.'  'And  where  can  I  put  up  my  horse,  Meinheer?'  ob- 
served the  huntsman.  '  I  will  take  care  of  him/  replied  my 
father,  going  out  of  the  cottage  door. 

"The  female  must,  however,  be  particularly  described.  She 
was  young,  and  apparently  twenty  years  of  age.  She  was 
dressed  in  a  travelling  dress,  deeply  bordered  with  white  fur, 
and  wore  a  cap  of  white  ermine  on  her  head.  Her  features 
were  very  beautiful,  at  least  I  thought  so,  and  so  my  father 
has  since  declared.  Her  hair  was  flaxen,  glossy,  and  shining, 
and  bright  as  a  mirror ;  and  her  mouth,  although  somewhat 
large  when  it  was  open,  showed  the  most  brilliant  teeth  I  have 
ever  beheld.  But  there  was  something  about  her  eyes,  bright 
as  they  were,  which  made  us  children  afraid  ;  they  were  so 
restless,  so  furtive ;  I  could  not  at  that  time  tell  why,  but  I 
felt  as  if  there  was  cruelty  in  her  eye;  and  when  she  beckoned 
us  to  come  to  her,  we  approached  her  with  fear  and  trembling. 
Still  she  was  beautiful,  very  beautiful.  •  She  spoke  kindly  to 
my  brother  and  myself,  patted  our  heads  and  caressed  us ; 
b,ut  Marcella  would  not  come  near  her;  on  the  contrary,  sho 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

slunk  away,  and  hid  herself  in  the  bed,  and  would  not  wait 
for  the  supper,  which  half-an-hour  before  she  had  been  so 
anxious  for. 

"  My  father,  having  put  the  horse  into  a  close  shed,  soon 
returned,  and  supper  was  placed  on  the  table.  When  it  was 
over,  my  father  requested  that  the  young  lady  would  take 
possession  of  the  bed,  and  he  would  remain  at  the  fire,  and 
sit  up  with  her  father.  After  some  hesitation  on  her  part, 
this  arrangement  was  agreed  to,  and  I  and  my  brother  crept 
into  the  other  bed  with  Marcella,  for  we  had  as  yet  always 
slept  together. 

"  But  we  could  not  sleep ;  there  was  something  so  unusual, 
not  only  in  seeing  strange  people,  but  in  having  those  people 
sleep  at  the  cottage,  that  we  were  bewildered.  As  for  poor 
little  Marcella,  she  was  quiet,  but  I  perceived  that  she 
trembled  during  the  whole  night,  and  sometimes  I  thought 
that  she  was  checking  a  sob.  My  father  had  brought  out 
some  spirits,  which  he  rarely  used,  and  he  and  the  strange 
hunter  remained  drinking  and  talking  before  the  fire.  Our 
ears  were  ready  to  catch  the  slightest  whisper- — so  much  was 
our  curiosity  excited. 

"'You  said  you  came  from  Transylvania?'  observed  my 
father. 

" '  Even  so,  Meinheer,'  replied  the  hunter.  '  I  was  a  serf 

to  the  noble  house  of ;  my  master  would  insist  upon  my 

surrendering  up  my  fair  girl  to  his  wishes  :  it  ended  in  my 
giving  him  a  few  inches  of  my  hunting-knife.' 

" '  We  are  countrymen  and  brothers  in  misfortune,'  replied 
my  father,  taking  the  huntsman's  hand,  and  pressing  it  warmly. 

"  '  Indeed  !     Are  you  then  from  that  country  ? ' 

" '  Yes ;  and  I  too  have  fled  for  my  life.  But  mine  is  a 
melancholy  tale.' 

*' '  Your  name  ? '  inquired  the  hunter. 

" '  Krantz.' 

" '  What !  Krantz  of ?  I  have  heard  your  tale  ;  you 

need  not  renew  your  grief  by  repeating  it  now.  Welcome, 
most  welcome,  Meinheer,  and,  I  may  say,  my  worthy  kins- 
man. I  am  your  second  cousin,  Wilfred  of  Barnsdorf,'  cried  the 
hunter,  rising  up  and  embracing  my  father. 

"  They  filled  their  horn-mugs  to  the  brim,  and  drank  to  one 
another  after  me  German  fashion.  The  conversation  was 
317 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

then  carried  on  in  a  low  tone  ;  all  that  we  could  collect  from 
it  was  that  our  new  relative  and  his  daughter  were  to  take  up 
their  abode  in  our  cottage,  at  least  for  the  present.  In  about 
an  hour  they  both  fell  back  in  their  chairs  and  appeared  to 
sleep. 

"  '  Marcella,  dear,  did  you  hear  ? '  said  my  brother,  in  a  low 
tone. 

"  '  Yes,'  replied  Marcella,  in  a  whisper,  '  I  heard  all.  Ch  ! 
brother,  I  cannot  bear  to  look  upon  that  woman — 1  feel  so 
frightened.' 

"My  brother  made  no  reply,  and  shortly  afterwards  we 
were  all  three  fast  asleep. 

"  When  we  awoke  the  next  morning,  we  found  that  the 
hunter's  daughter  had  risen  before  us.  I  thought  she  looked 
more  beautiful  than  ever.  She  came  up  to  little  Marcella 
and  caressed  her;  the  child  burst  into  tears,  and  sobbed  as 
if  her  heart  would  break. 

"  But  not  to  detain  you  with  too  long  a  story,  the  hunts- 
man and  his  daughter  were  accommodated  in  the  cottage. 
My  father  and  he  went  out  hunting  daily,  leaving  Christina 
with  us.  She  performed  all  the  household  duties ;  was  very 
kind  to  us  children  ;  and  gradually  the  dislike  even  of  little 
Marcella  wore  away.  But  a  great  change  took  place  in  my 
father ;  he  appeared  to  have  conquered  his  aversion  to  the 
sex  and  was  most  attentive  to  Christina.  Often,  after  her 
father  and  we  were  in  bed,  would  he  sit  up  with  her,  con- 
versing in  a  low  tone  by  the  fire.  I  ought  to  have  men- 
tioned  that  my  father  and  the  huntsman  Wilfred  slept  in 
another  portion  of  the  cottage,  and  that  the  bed  which 
he  formerly  occupied,  and  which  was  in  the  same  room  as 
ours,  had  been  given  up  to  the  use  of  Christina.  These 
visitors  had  been  about  three  weeks  at  the  cottage,  when, 
one  night,  after  we  children  had  been  sent  to  bed,  a  consul- 
tation was  held.  My  father  had  asked  Christina  in  marriage, 
and  had  obtained  both  her  own  consent  and  that  of  Wilfred  ; 
after  this,  a  conversation  took  place,  which  was,  as  nearly  as  I 
can  recollect,  as  follows  : — 

" '  You  may  take  my  child,  Meinheer  Krantz,  and  my 
blessing  with  her,  and  I  shall  then  leave  you  and  seek  some 
other  habitation — it  matters  little  where.' 

'"Why  not  remain  here,  Wilfred  ?' 
SIS 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

" '  No,  no,  I  am  called  elsewhere  ;  let  that  suffice,  and  ask 
no  more  questions.  You  have  my  child.' 

" '  I  thank  you  for  her,  and  will  duly  value  her ;  but  there 
is  one  difficulty.' 

" '  I  know  what  you  would  say ;  there  is  no  priest  here  in 
this  wild  country  :  true  ;  neither  is  there  any  law  to  bind.  Still 
must  some  ceremony  pass  between  you,  to  satisfy  a  father. 
Will  you  consent  to  marry  her  after  my  fashion  ?  if  so,  I  will 
marry  you  directly.' 

" '  I  will/  replied  my  father. 

" '  Then  take  her  by  the  hand.     Now,  Meinheer,  swear.' 

"  '  I  swear/  repeated  my  father. 

" (  By  all  the  spirits  of  the  Hartz  Mountains 

" '  Nay,  why  not  by  Heaven  ?  '  interrupted  my  father. 

" '  Because  it  is  not  my  humour/  rejoined  Wilfred.  '  If  I 
prefer  that  oath,  less  binding,  perhaps,  than  another,  surely 
you  will  not  thwart  me.' 

"  '  Well,  be  it  so  then  ;  have  your  humour.  Will  you  make 
me  swear  by  that  in  which  I  do  not  believe  ? ' 

"'Yet  many  do  so, who  in  outward  appearance  ai-e  Christians/ 
rejoined  Wilfred  ;  'say,  will  you  be  married,  or  shall  I  take  my 
daughter  away  with  me  ?  ' 

"  '  Proceed/  replied  my  father  impatiently. 

" '  I  swear  by  all  the  spirits  of  the  Hartz  Mountains,  by  all 
their  power  for  good  or  for  evil,  that  I  take  Christina  for  my 
wedded  wife  ;  that  I  will  ever  protect  her,  cherish  her,  and 
love  her ;  that  my  hand  shall  never  be  raised  against  her  to 
harm  her.' 

"  My  father  repeated  the  words  after  Wilfred. 

" '  And  if  I  fail  in  this  my  vow,  may  all  the  vengeance  of 
the  spirits  fall  upon  me  and  upon  my  children  ;  may  they 
perish  by  the  vulture,  by  the  wolf,  or  other  beasts  of  the 
forest ;  may  their  flesh  be  torn  from  their  limbs,  and  their 
bones  blanch  in  the  wilderness :  all  this  I  swear.' 

"  My  father  hesitated,  as  he  repeated  the  last  words ;  little 
Marcella  could  not  restrain  herself,  and  as  my  father  repeated 
the  last  sentence,  she  burst  into  tears.  This  sudden  inter- 
ruption appeared  to  discompose  the  party,  particularly  my 
father;  he  spoUe  harshly  to  the  child,  who  controlled  her 
sobs,  burying  her  face  under  the  bedclothes. 

"  Such  was  the  second  marriage  of  my  father.  The  next 
319 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

morning,  the  hunter  Wilfred  mounted  his  horse  and  rode 
away. 

"  My  father  resumed  his  bed,  which  was  in  the  same  room 
as  ours ;  and  things  went  on  much  as  before  the  marriage, 
except  that  our  new  mother-in-law  did  not  show  any  kindness 
towards  us ;  indeed,  during  my  father's  absence,  she  would 
often  beat  us,  particularly  little  Marcella,  and  her  eyes  would 
flash  fire,  as  she  looked  eagerly  upon  the  fair  and  lovely  child. 

"  One  night  my  sister  awoke  me  and  my  brother. 

" '  What  is  the  matter  ? '  said  Caesar. 

" '  She  has  gone  out/  whispered  Marcella. 

« '  Gone  out ! ' 

" '  Yes,  gone  out  at  the  door,  in  her  night-clothes,'  replied 
the  child  ;  '  I  saw  her  get  out  of  bed,  look  at  my  father  to  see 
if  he  slept,  and  then  she  went  out  at  the  door.' 

"  What  could  induce  her  to  leave  her  bed,  and  all  undressed 
to  go  out,  in  such  bitter  wintry  weather,  with  the  snow  deep 
on  the  ground,  was  to  us  incomprehensible  ;  we  lay  awake, 
and  in  about  an  hour  we  heard  the  growl  of  a  wolf  cltse  under 
the  window. 

" '  There  is  a  wolf/  said  Caesar.    '  She  will  be  torn  to  pieces.' 

" '  Oh  no  ! '  cried  Marcella. 

"  In  a  few  minutes  afterwards  our  mother-in-law  appeared  ; 
she  was  in  her  night-dress,  as  Marcella  had  stated.  She  let 
down  the  latch  of  the  door,  so  as  to  make  no  noise,  went  to  a 
pail  of  water,  and  washed  her  face  and  hands,  and  then  slipped 
into  the  bed  where  my  father  lay. 

"  We  all  three  trembled — we  hardly  knew  why ;  but  we 
resolved  to  watch  the  next  night.  We  did  so  ;  and  not  only  on 
the  ensuing  night  but  on  many  others,  and  always  at  about  the 
same  hour,  would  our  mother-in-law  rise  from  her  bed  and 
leave  the  cottage  ;  and  after  she  was  gone  we  invariably  heard 
the  growl  of  a  wolf  under  our  window,  and  always  saw  her 
on  her  return  wash  herself  before  she  retired  to  bed.  We 
observed  also  that  she  seldom  sat  down  to  meals,  and  that 
when  she  did  she  appeared  to  eat  with  dislike  ;  but  when  the 
meat  was  taken  down  to  be  prepared  for  dinner,  she  wouu! 
often  furtively  put  a  raw  piece  into  her  month. 

"  My  brother  Caesar  was  a  courageous  boy ;  he  did  not  like 
to  speak  to  my  father  until  he  knew  more.  He  resolved  that 
he  would  follow  her  out,  and  ascertain  what  she  did.  Marcella 
320 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

and  T  endeavoured  to  dissuade  him  from  the  project ;  but  he 
would  not  be  controlled ;  and  the  very  next  night  he  lay 
down  in  his  clothes,  and  as  soon  as  our  mother-in-law  had 
left  the  cottage  he  jumped  up,  took  down  my  father's  gun, 
and  followed  her. 

"  You  may  imagine  in  what  a  state  of  suspense  Marcella  and 
I  remained  during  his  absence.  After  a  few  minutes  we  heard 
the  report  of  a  gun.  It  did  not  awaken  my  father  ;  and  we 
lay  trembling  with  anxiety.  In  a  minute  afterwards  we  saw 
our  mother-in-law  enter  the  cottage— her  dress  was  bloody.  I 
put  my  hand  to  Marcella's  mouth  to  prevent  her  crying  out, 
although  I  was  myself  in  great  alarm.  Our  mother-in-law  a\y- 
proached  my  father's  bed,  looked  to  see  if  he  was  asleep,  and 
then  went  to  the  chimney  and  blew  up  the  embers  into  a  blaze. 

"  '  Who  is  there  ? '  said  my  father,  waking  up. 

"  '  Lie  still,  dearest,'  replied  my  mother-in-law ;  '  it  is  only 
me ;  I  have  lighted  the  fire  to  warm  some  water ;  I  am  not 
quite  well.' 

"  My  father  turned  round,  and  was  soon  asleep ;  but  we 
watched  our  mother-in-law.  She  changed  her  linen,  and  threw 
the  garments  she  had  worn  into  the  fire  ;  and  we  then  per- 
ceived that  her  right  leg  was  bleeding  profusely,  as  if  from  a 
gun-shot  wound.  She  bandaged  it  up,  and  then  dressing  her- 
self, remained  before  the  fire  until  the  break  of  day. 

"Poor  little  Marcella,  her  heart  beat  quick  as  she  pressed 
me  to  her  side — so  indeed  did  mine.  Where  was  our  brother 
Caesar  ?  How  did  my  mother-in-law  receive  the  wound  unless 
from  his  gun  ?  At  last  my  father  rose,  and  then  for  the  first 
time  I  spoke,  saying,  '  Father,  where  is  my  brother  Caesar  ? ' 

"  '  Your  brother  ? '  exclaimed  he  ;  '  why,  where  can  he  be  ? ' 

" '  Merciful  Heaven  !  I  thought,  as  I  lay  very  restless  last 
night,'  observed  our  mother-in-law,  '  that  I  heard  somebody 
open  the  latch  of  the  door ;  and,  dear  me,  husband,  what  has 
become  of  your  gun  ?  ' 

"  My  father  cast  his  eyes  up  above  the  chimney,  and  per- 
ceived that  his  gun  was  missing.  For  a  moment  he  looked 
perplexed  ;  then,  seizing  a  broad  axe,  he  went  out  of  the 
cottage  without  saying  another  word. 

"  He  did  not  femain  away  from  us  long ;  in  a  few  minutes 
he  returned,  bearing  in  his  arms  the  mangled  body  of  my  poor 
brother ;  he  laid  it  down,  and  covered  up  his  face. 

321  X 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

n  My  mother-in-law  rose  up,  and  looked  at  the  body,  while 
Marcella  and  I  threw  ourselves  by  its  side,  wailing  and  sobbing 
bitterly. 

"  '  Go  to  bed  again,  children/  said  she  sharply.  '  Husband/ 
continued  she,  'your  boy  must  have  taken  the  gun  down  to 
shoot  a  wolf,  and  the  animal  has  been  too  powerful  for  him. 
Poor  boy  !  he  has  paid  dearly  for  his  rashness.' 

"  My  father  made  no  reply.  I  wished  to  speak — to  tell  all 
—but  Marcella,  who  perceived  my  intention,  held  me  by  the 
arm,  and  looked  at  me  so  imploringly,  that  I  desisted.  - 

"  My  father,  therefore,  was  left  in  his  error ;  but  Marcella 
and  I,  although  we  could  not  comprehend  it,  were  conscious 
that  our  mother-in-law  was  in  some  way  connected  with  my 
brother's  death. 

"  That  day  my  father  went  out  and  dug  a  grave  ;  and  when 
he  laid  the  body  in  the  earth,  he  piled  up  stones  over  it,  so 
that  the  wolves  should  not  be  able  to  dig  it  up.  The  shock 
of  this  catastrophe  was  to  my  poor  father  very  severe ;  for 
several  days  he  never  went  to  the  chase,  although  at  times 
he  would  utter  bitter  anathemas  and  vengeance  against  the 
wolves. 

"  But  during  this  time  of  mourning  on  his  part,  my  mother- 
in-law's  nocturnal  wanderings  continued  with  the  same  regu- 
larity as  before. 

"  At  last  my  father  took  down  his  gun  to  repair  to  the 
forest ;  but  he  soon  returned,  and  appeared  much  annoyed. 

" '  Would  you  believe  it,  Christina,  that  the  wolves — per- 
dition to  the  whole  race  ! — have  actually  contrived  to  dig  up 
the  body  of  my  poor  boy,  and  now  there  is  nothing  left  of 
him  but  his  bones.' 

"  '  Indeed  ! '  replied  my  mother-in-law.  Marcella  looked  at 
me,  and  I  saw  in  her  intelligent  eye  all  she  would  have  uttered. 

" '  A  wolf  growls  under  our  window  every  night,  father/ 
said  I. 

" '  Ay,  indeed  !  Why  did  you  not  tell  me,  boy  ?  Wake 
me  the  next  time  you  hear  it.' 

"  I  saw  my  mother-in-law  turn  away ;  her  eyes  flashed  fire, 
and  she  gnashed  her  teeth. 

"  My  father  went  out  again,  and  covered  up  with  a  larger 
pile  of  stones  the  little  remains  of  my  poor  brother  which  the 
wolves  had  spared.     Such  was  the  first  act  of  the  tragedy. 
322 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

"  The  spring  now  came  on ;  the  snow  disappeared,  and  we 
were  permitted  to  leave  the  cottage ;  but  never  would  I  quit 
for  one  moment  my  dear  little  sister,  to  whom,  since  the  death 
of  my  brother,  I  was  more  ardently  attached  than  ever ; 
indeed,  I  was  afraid  to  leave  her  alone  with  my  mother-in- 
law,  who  appeared  to  have  a  particular  pleasure  in  ill-treating 
the  child.  My  father  was  now  employed  upon  his  little  farm, 
and  I  was  able  to  render  him  some  assistance. 

"  Marcella  used  to  sit  by  us  while  we  were  at  work,  leaving 
my  mother-in-law  alone  in  the  cottage.  I  ought  to  observe 
that,  as  the  spring  advanced,  so  did  my  mother-in-law  de- 
crease her  nocturnal  rambles,  and  that  we  never  heard  the 
growl  of  the  wolf  under  the  window  after  I  had  spoken  of  it 
to  my  father. 

"  One  day,  when  my  father  and  I  were  in  the  field,  Marcella 
being  with  us,  my  mother-in-law  came  out,  saying  that  she  was 
going  into  the  forest  to  collect  some  herbs  my  father  wanted, 
and  that  Marcella  must  go  to  the  cottage  and  watch  the 
dinner.  Marcella  went;  and  my  mother-in-law  soon  disap- 
peared in  the  forest,  taking  a  direction  quite  contrary  to  that 
in  which  the  cottage  stood,  and  leaving  my  father  and  I,  as 
it  were,  between  her  and  Marcella. 

"About  an  hour  afterwards  we  were  startled  by  shrieks 
from  the  cottage — evidently  the  shrieks  of  little  Marcella. 
'Marcella  has  burnt  herself,  father,'  said  I,  throwing  down 
my  spade.  My  father  threw  down  his,  and  we  both  hastened 
to  the  cottage.  Before  we  could  gain  the  door,  out  darted  a 
large  white  wolf,  which  fled  with  the  utmost  celerity.  My 
father  had  no  weapon  ;  he  rushed  into  the  cottage,  and  there 
saw  poor  little  Marcella  expiring.  Her  body  was  dreadfully 
mangled,  and  the  blood  pouring  from  it  had  formed  a  large 
pool  on  the  cottage  floor.  My  father's  first  intention  had 
been  to  seize  his  gun  and  pursue  ;  but  he  was  checked  by 
this  horrid  spectacle ;  he  knelt  down  by  his  dying  child,  and 
burst  into  tears.  Marcella  could  just  look  kindly  on  us  for  a 
few  seconds,  and  then  her  eyes  were  closed  in  death. 

"  My  father  and  I  were  still  hanging  over  my  poor  sister's 
body,  when  my  mother-in-law  came  in.  At  the  dreadful 
sight  she  expressed  much  concern ;  but  she  did  not  appear  to 
recoil  from  the  sight  of  blood,  as  most  women  do. 

" '  Poor  child  1 '  said  she,  '  it  must  have  been  that  great 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

white  wolf  which  passed  me  just  now,  and  frightened  me  s<X 
She's  quite  dead,  Krantz.' 

f"\  know  it ! — I  know  it ! '  cried  my  father,  in  agony. 

"  I  thought  my  father  would  never  recover  from  the  effects 
of  this  second  tragedy ;  he  mourned  bitterly  over  the  body  ot 
his  sweet  child,  and  for  several  days  would  not  consign  it  to 
its  grave,  although  frequently  requested  by  my  mother-in-law 
to  do  so.  At  last  he  yielded,  and  dug  a  grave  for  her  close 
by  that  of  my  poor  brother,  and  took  every  precaution  that 
the  wolves  should  not  violate  her  remains. 

"  I  was  now  really  miserable,  as  I  lay  alone  in  the  bed  which 
I  had  formerly  shared  with  my  brother  and  sister.  I  could  not 
help  thinking  that  my  mother-in-law  was  implicated  in  both 
their  deaths,  although  I  could  not  account  for  the  manner ; 
but  I  no  longer  felt  afraid  of  her ;  my  little  heart  was  full  of 
hatred  and  revenge. 

"The  night  after  my  sister  had  been  buried,  as  I  lay 
awake,  I  perceived  my  mother-in-law  get  up  and  go  out  of 
the  cottage.  I  waited  some  time,  then  dressed  myself,  and 
looked  out  through  the  door,  which  I  half  opened.  The 
moon  shone  bright,  and  I  could  see  the  spot  where  my 
brother  and  my  sister  had  been  buried  ;  and  what  was  my 
horror  when  I  perceived  my  mother-in-law  busily  removing 
the  stones  from  Marcella's  grave  ! 

"She  was  in  her  white  night-dress,  and  the  moon  shone 
full  upon  her.  She  was  digging  with  her  hands,  and  throwing 
away  the  stones  behind  her  with  all  the  ferocity  of  a  wild 
"beast.  It  was  some  time  before  I  could  collect  my  senses 
and  decide  what  I  should  do.  At  last  I  perceived  that  she 
had  arrived  at  the  body,  and  raised  it  up  to  the  side  of  the 
grave.  I  could  bear  it  no  longer:  I  ran  to  my  father  and 
awoke  him. 

"'Father,  father!'  cried  I,  'dress  yourself,  and  get  your  gun.* 

"  '  What ! '  cried  my  father, '  the  wolves  are  there,  are  they  ?' 

"  He  jumped  out  of  bed,  threw  on  his  clothes,  and  in  his 
anxiety  did  not  appear  to  perceive  the  absence  of  his  wife. 
As  soon  as  he  was  ready  I  opened  the  door,  he  went  out, 
and  I  followed  him. 

"  Imagine  his  horror,  when  (unprepared  as  he  was  for  such 
a  sight)  he  beheld,  as  he  advanced  towards  the  grave,  not  a 
yrolf,  but  his  wife,  in  her  night-dress,  on  her  hands  and  knees. 
884 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

crouching  by  the  body  of  my  sister,  and  tearing  off  large 
pieces  of  the  flesh,  and  devouring  them  with  all  the  avidity 
of  a  wolf.  She  was  too  busy  to  be  aware  of  our  approach. 
My  father  dropped  his  gun ;  his  hair  stood  on  end,  so  did 
mine  ;  he  breathed  heavily,  and  then  his  breath  for  a  time 
stopped.  I  picked  up  the  gun  and  put  it  into  his  hand. 
Suddenly  he  appeared  as  if  concentrated  rage  had  restored 
him  to  double  vigour ;  he  levelled  his  piece,  fired,  and  with 
a  loud  shriek  down  fell  the  wretch  whom  he  had  fostered 
in  his  bosom. 

" '  God  of  heaven ! '  cried  my  father,  sinking  down  upon 
the  earth  in  a  swoon,  as  soon  as  he  had  discharged  his  gun. 

"  I  remained  some  time  by  his  side  before  he  recovered. 
'  Where  am  I  ?  '  said  he,  '  what  has  happened  ?  Oh  ! — yes, 
yes  !  I  recollect  now.  Heaven  forgive  me  ! ' 

"  He  rose  and  we  walked  up  to  the  grave  ;  what  again  was 
our  astonishment  and  horror  to  find  that,  instead  of  the  dead 
body  of  my  mother-in-law,  as  we  expected,  there  was  lying 
over  the  remains  of  my  poor  sister  a  large  white  she-wolf. 

"'The  white  wolf,'  exclaimed  my  father,  ' the  white  wolf 
which  decoyed  me  into  the  forest — I  see  it  all  now — I  have 
dealt  with  the  spirits  of  the  Hartz  Mountains.' 

"  For  some  time  my  father  remained  in  silence  and  deep 
thought.  He  then  carefully  lifted  up  the  body  of  mv  sister, 
replaced  it  in  the  grave,  and  covered  it  over  as  before,  having 
struck  the  head  of  the  dead  animal  with  the  heel  of  his  boot, 
and  raving  like  a  madman.  He  walked  back  to  the  cottage, 
shut  the  door,  and  threw  himself  on  the  bed  ;  I  did  the 
same,  for  I  was  in  a  stupor  of  amazement. 

"Early  in  the  morning  we  were  both  roused  by  a  loud 
knocking  at  the  door,  and  in  rushed  the  hunter  Wilfred. 

" '  My  daughter  —  man  —  my  daughter  !  —  where  is  my 
daughter  ? '  cried  he  in  a  rage. 

" '  Where  the  wretch,  the  fiend  should  be,  I  trust,'  replied 
my  father,  starting  up,  and  displaying  equal  choler :  '  where 
she  should  be — in  hell !  Leave  this  cottage,  or  you  may 
fare  worse.' 

"  '  Ha — ha  ! '  replied  the  hunter,  '  would  you  harm  a 
potent  spirit  of  the  Hartz  Mountains  ?  Poor  mortal,  who  must 
needs  wed  a  were- wolf.' 

" ' Out,  demon  !  I  defy  thee  and  thy  power.' 
325 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

" '  Yet  shall  you  feel  it ;  remember  your  oath — your  solemn 
oath — never  to  raise  your  hand  against  her  to  harm  her.' 

" '  I  made  no  compact  with  evil  spirits.' 

"'You  did,  and  if  you  failed  in  your  vow,  you  were  to 
meet  the  vengeance  of  the  spirits.  Your  children  were  to 
perish  by  the  vulture,  the  wolf ' 

" '  Out,  out,  demon  ! ' 

" '  And  their  bones  blanch  in  the  wilderness.     Ha  ! — ha  ! ' 

"  My  father,  frantic  with  rage,  seized  his  axe  and  raised  it 
over  Wilfred's  head  to  strike. 

" '  All  this  I  swear,'  continued  the  huntsman  mockingly. 

"  The  axe  descended ;  but  it  passed  through  the  form  of 
the  hunter,  and  my  father  lost  his  balance,  and  fell  heavily 
on  the  floor. 

" '  Mortal ! '  said  the  hunter,  striding  over  my  father's 
body,  '  we  have  power  over  those  only  who  have  committed 
murder.  You  have  been  guilty  of  a  double  murder :  you 
shall  pay  the  penalty  attached  to  your  marriage  vow.  Two 
of  your  children  are  gone,  the  third  is  yet  to  follow — and 
follow  them  he  will,  for  your  oath  is  registered.  Go — it  were 
kindness  to  kill  thee — your  punishment  is,  that  you  live  I' 

"  With  these  words  the  spirit  disappeared.  My  father  rose 
from  the  floor,  embraced  me  tenderly,  and  knelt  down  in 
prayer. 

"  The  next  morning  he  quitted  the  cottage  for  ever.  He 
took  me  with  him,  and  bent  his  steps  to  Holland,  where  we 
safely  arrived.  He  had  some  little  money  with  him  ;  but  he 
had  not  been  many  days  in  Amsterdam  before  he  was  seized 
with  a  brain  fever,  and  died  raving  mad.  I  was  put  into  the 
asylum,  and  afterwards  was  sent  to  sea  before  the  mast.  You 
now  know  all  my  history.  The  question  is,  whether  I  am  to 
pay  the  penalty  of  my  father's  oath  ?  I  am  myself  perfectly 
convinced  that,  in  some  way  or  another,  I  shall." 

On  the  twenty-second  day  the  high  land  of  the  south  of 
Sumatra  was  in  view  :  as  there  were  no  vessels  in  sight,  they 
resolved  to  keep  their  course  through  the  Straits,  and  run  for 
Pulo  Penang,  which  they  expected,  as  their  vessel  lay  so  close 
to  the  wind,  to  reach  in  seven  or  eight  days.  By  constant 
exposure  Philip  and  Krantz  were  now  so  bronzed,  that  with 
their  long  beards  and  Mussulman  dresses,  they  might  easily 
have  passed  off  for  natives.  They  had  steered  during  the 
326 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

whole  of  the  days  exposed  to  a  burning  sun  ;  they  had  lain 
down  and  slept  in  the  dew  of  the  night;  but  their  health  had 
not  suffered.  But  for  several  days,  since  he  had  confided  the 
history  of  his  family  to  Philip,  Krantz  had  become  silent  and 
melancholy ;  his  usual  flow  of  spirits  had  vanished,  and  Philip 
had  often  questioned  him  as  to  the  cause.  As  they  entered 
the  Straits,  Philip  talked  of  what  they  should  do  upon  their 
arrival  at  Goa ;  when  Krantz  gravely  replied,  "  For  some 
days,  Philip,  I  have  had  a  presentiment  that  I  shall  never 
see  that  city." 

"  You  are  out  of  health,  Krantz,"  replied  Philip. 

"  No,  I  am  in  sound  health,  body  and  mind.  I  have 
endeavoured  to  shake  off  the  presentiment,  but  in  vain ; 
there  is  a  warning  voice  that  continually  tells  me  that  I  shall 
not  be  long  with  you.  Philip,  will  you  oblige  me  by  making 
me  content  on  one  point  ?  I  have  gold  about  my  person 
which  may  be  useful  to  you  ;  oblige  me  by  taking  it,  and 
securing  it  on  your  own." 

"What  nonsense,  Krantz." 

"It  is  no  nonsense,  Philip.  Have  you  not  had  your 
warnings  ?  Why  should  not  I  have  mine  ?  You  know  that  I 
have  little  fear  in  my  composition,  and  that  I  care  not  about 
death  ;  but  I  feel  the  presentiment  which  I  speak  of  more 
strongly  every  hour.  It  is  some  kind  spirit  who  would  warn 
me  to  prepare  for  another  world.  Be  it  so.  I  have  lived  long 
enough  in  this  world  to  leave  it  without  regret ;  although  to 
part  with  you  and  Amine,  the  only  two  now  dear  to  me,  is 
painful,  I  acknowledge." 

"  May  not  this  arise  from  over-exertion  and  fatigue,  Krantz  ? 
Consider  how  much  excitement  you  have  laboured  under 
within  these  last  four  months.  Is  not  that  enough  to  create  a 
corresponding  depression ?  Depend  upon  it,  my  dear  friend, 
such  is  the  fact." 

"  I  wish  it  were ;  but  I  feel  otherwise,  and  there  is  a  feeling 
of  gladness  connected  with  the  idea  that  I  am  to  leave  this 
world  arising  from  another  presentiment,  which  equally 
occupies  my  mind." 

"  WThich  is " 

"  I  hardly  can  tell  you ;  but  Amine  and  you  are  connected 
with  it.  In  my  dreams  I  have  seen  you  meet  again  ;  but  it 
has  appeared  to  me  as  if  a  portion  of  your  trial  was  purposely 
327 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

shut  from  my  sight  in  dark  clouds ;  and  I  have  asked,  '  May 
not  I  see  what  is  there  concealed  ? ' — and  an  invisible  has 
answered,  f  No  !  'twould  make  you  wretched.  Before  these 
trials  take  place,  you  will  be  summoned  away ; '  and  then  1 
have  thanked  Heaven,  and  felt  resigned." 

"These  are  the  imaginings  of  a  disturbed  brain,  Krantz; 
that  I  am  destined  to  suffering  may  be  true  ;  but  why  Amine 
should  suffer,  or  why  you,  young,  in  full  health  and  vigour, 
should  not  pass  your  days  in  peace,  and  live  to  a  good  old 
age,  there  is  no  cause  for  believing.  You  will  be  better  to- 
morrow.'' 

"  Perhaps  so,"  replied  Krantz  ;  "  but  still  you  must  yield 
to  my  whim,  and  take  the  gold.  If  I  am  wrong,  and  we  do 
arrive  safe,  you  know,  Philip,  you  can  let  me  have  it  back," 
observed  Krantz,  with  a  faint  smile — "  but  you  forget,  our 
water  is  nearly  out,  and  we  must  look  out  for  a  rill  on  the 
coast  to  obtain  a  fresh  supply." 

"  I  was  thinking  of  that  when  you  commenced  this  un- 
welcome topic.  We  had  better  look  out  for  the  water  before 
dark,  and  as  soon  as  we  have  replenished  our  jars,  we  will 
make  sail  again." 

At  the  time  that  this  conversation  took  place,  they  were  on 
the  eastern  side  of  the  strait,  about  forty  miles  to  the  north- 
ward. The  interior  of  the  coast  was  rocky  and  mountainous, 
but  it  slowly  descended  to  low  land  of  alternate  forest  and 
jungles,  which  continued  to  the  beach  :  the  country  appeared 
to  be  uninhabited.  Keeping  close  in  to  the  shore,  they  dis- 
covered, after  two  hours'  run,  a  fresh  stream  which  burst  in  a 
cascade  from  the  mountains,  and  swept  its  devious  course 
through  the  jungle,  until  it  poured  its  tribute  into  the  waters 
of  the  strait. 

They  ran  close  in  to  the  mouth  of  the  stream,  lowered  the 
sails,  and  pulled  the  peroqua  against  the  current,  until  they 
had  advanced  f:ir  enough  to  assure  them  that  the  water  was 
quite  fresh.  The  jars  were  soon  filled,  and  they  were  again 
thinking  of  pushing  off,  when,  enticed  by  the  beauty  of  the 
spot,  the  coolness  of  the  fresh  water,  and  wearied  with  their 
long  confinement  on  board  of  the  peroqua,  they  proposed  to 
bathe — a  luxury  hardly  to  be  appreciated  by  those  who  have 
not  been  in  a  similar  situation.  They  threw  off  their  Mus- 
sulman dresses,  and  plunged  into  the  stream,  where  they 
328 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

remained  for  some  time.  Krantz  was  the  first  to  get  out ;  he 
complained  of  feeling  chilled,  and  he  walked  on  to  the  banks 
where  their  clothes  had  been  laid.  Philip  also  approached 
nearer  to  the  beach,  intending  to  follow  him. 

"  And  now,  Philip,"  said  Krantz,  "  this  will  be  a  good 
opportunity  for  me  to  give  you  the  money.  I  will  open  my 
sash  and  pour  it  out,  and  you  can  put  it  into  your  own  before 
you  put  it  on." 

Philip  was  standing  in  the  water,  which  was  about  level 
with  his  waist. 

"  Well,  Krantz,"  said  he,  "  I  suppose  if  it  must  be  so,  it 
must ;  but  it  appears  to  me  an  idea  so  ridiculous — however, 
you  shall  have  your  own  way." 

Fhilip  quitted  the  run,  and  sat  down  by  Krantz,  who  was 
already  busy  in  shaking  the  doubloons  out  of  the  folds  of  his 
sash  ;  at  last  he  said — 

"I  believe,  Philip,  you  have  got  them  all  now! — I  feel 
satisfied." 

"What  danger  there  can  be  to  you,  which  I  am  not 
equally  exposed  to,  I  cannot  conceive,"  replied  Philip;  " how- 
ever— 

Hardly  had  he  said  these  words,  when  there  was  a  tre- 
mendous roar — a  rush  like  a  mighty  wind  through  the  air — a 
blow  which  threw  him  on  his  back—  a  loud  cry — and  a  con- 
tention. Philip  recovered  himself,  and  perceived  the  naked 
form  of  Krantz  carried  off  with  the  speed  of  an  arrow  by  an 
enormous  tiger  through  the  jungle.  He  watched  with  dis- 
tended eyeballs ;  in  a  few  seconds  the  animal  and  Krantz  had 
disappeared. 

"God  of  heaven  !  would  that  Thou  hadst  spared  me  this," 
cried  Philip,  throwing  himself  down  in  agony  on  his  face. 
"O  Krantz!  my  friend — my  brother — too  sure  was  your 
presentiment.  Merciful  God  !  have  pity— but  Thy  will  be 
done  ; "  and  Philip  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears. 

For  more  than  an  hour  did  he  remain  fixed  upon  the  spot, 
careless  and  indifferent  to  the  danger  by  which  he  was  sur- 
rounded. At  last,  somewhat  recovered,  he  rose,  dressed 
himself,  and  then  again  sat  down— his  eyes  fixed  upon  the 
clothes  of  Krantz,  and  the  gold  which  still  lay  on  the  sand. 

"  He  would  give  me  that  gold.  He  foretold  his  doom. 
Yes !  yes !  it  was  his  destiny,  and  it  has  been  fulfilled.  IIu 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

bones  will  bleach  in  the  wilderness,  and  the  spirit-hunter  and  his 
wolfish  daughter  are  avenged." 

The  shades  of  evening  now  set  in,  and  the  low  growling 
of  the  beasts  of  the  forest  recalled  Philip  to  a  sense  of  his 
own  danger.  He  thought  of  Amine ;  and  hastily  making 
the  clothes  of  Krantz  and  the  doubloons  into  a  package,  he 
stepped  into  the  peroqua,  with  difficulty  shoved  it  off,  and 
with  a  melancholy  heart,  and  in  silence,  hoisted  the  sail,  and 
pursued  his  course. 

"  Yes,  Amine,"  thought  Philip,  as  he  watched  the  stars 
twinkling  and  coruscating ;  "  yes,  you  are  right,  when  you 
assert  that  the  destinies  of  men  are  foreknown,  and  may  by 
some  be  read.  My  destiny  is,  alas !  that  I  should  be  severed 
from  all  I  value  upon  earth,  and  die  friendless  and  alone. 
Then  welcome  death,  if  such  is  to  be  the  case  ;  welcome — a 
thousand  welcomes !  what  a  relief  wilt  thou  be  to  me  !  what 
joy  to  find  myself  summoned  to  where  the  weary  are  at  rest ! 
I  have  my  task  to  fulfil.  God  grant  that  it  may  soon  be 
accomplished,  and  let  not  my  life  be  embittered  by  any  more 
trials  such  as  this." 

Again  did  Philip  weep,  for  Krantz  had  been  his  long-tried, 
valued  friend,  his  partner  in  all  his  dangers  and  privations, 
from  the  period  that  they  had  met,  when  the  Dutch  fleet 
attempted  the  passage  round  Cape  Horn. 

After  seven  days  of  painful  watching  and  brooding  over 
bitter  thoughts,  Philip  arrived  at  Pulo  Penang,  where  he  found 
a  vessel  about  to  sail  for  the  city  to  which  he  was  destined. 
He  ran  his  peroqua  alongside  of  her,  and  found  that  she  was 
a  brig  under  the  Portuguese  flag,  having,  however,  but  two 
Portuguese  on  board,  the  rest  of  the  crew  being  natives. 
Representing  himself  as  an  Englishman  in  the  Portuguese 
service,  who  had  been  wrecked,  and  offering  to  pay  for  his 
passage,  he  was  willingly  received,  and  in  a  few  days  the 
vessel  sailed. 

Their  voyage  was  prosperous ;  in  six  weeks  they  anchored 
in  the  roads  of  Goa ;  the  next  day  they  went  up  the  river. 
The  Portuguese  captain  informed  Philip  where  he  might 
obtain  lodging ;  and  passing  him  off  as  one  of  his  crew,  there 
was  no  difficulty  raised  as  to  his  landing.  Having  located 
himself  at  his  new  lodging,  Philip  commenced  some  inquiries 
of  his  host  relative  to  Amine,  designating  her  merely  as  a 
330 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

young  woman  who  had  arrived  there  in  a  vessel  some  weeks 
before ;  but  he  could  obtain  no  information  concerning  her. 
"Signer,"  said  the  host,  "to-morrow  is  the  grand  auto-da-fe ; 
we  can  do  nothing  until  that  is  over ;  afterwards,  I  will  put 
you  in  the  way  to  find  out  what  you  wish.  In  the  meantime, 
you  can  walk  about  the  town  ;  to-morrow  I  will  take  you  to 
where  you  can  behold  the  grand  procession,  and  then  we  will 
try  what  we  can  do  to  assist  you  in  your  search." 

Philip  went  out,  procured  a  suit  of  clothes,  removed  his 
beard,  and  then  walked  about  the  town,  looking  up  at  every 
window  to  see  if  he  could  perceive  Amine.  At  a  corner 
of  one  of  the  streets,  he  thought  he  recognised  Father 
Mathias,  and  ran  up  to  him  ;  but  the  monk  had  drawn  his 
cowl  over  his  head,  and  when  addressed  by  that  name,  made 
no  reply. 

"  I  was  deceived,"  thought  Philip  ;  "  but  I  really  thought 
it  was  him."  And  Philip  was  right;  it  was  Father  Mathias, 
who  thus  screened  himself  from  Philip's  recognition. 

Tired,  at  last  he  returned  to  his  hotel,  just  before  it  was 
dark.  The  company  there  were  numerous ;  everybody  for 
miles  distant  had  come  to  Goa  to  witness  the  anto-da-ft-, — and 
everybody  was  discussing  the  ceremony. 

"  I  will  see  this  grand  procession,"  said  Philip  to  himself,  as 
he  threw  himself  on  his  bed.  "  It  will  drive  thought  from 
me  for  a  time  ;  and  God  knows  how  painful  my  thoughts  have 
now  become.  Amine,  dear  Amine,  may  angels  guard  thee  ! " 


CHAPTER  XL 

ALTHOUGH  to-morrow  was  to  end  all  Amine's  hopes  and 
fears — all  her  short  happiness — her  suspense  and  misery — yet 
Amine  slept  until  her  last  slumber  in  this  world  was  disturbed 
by  the  unlocking  and  unbarring  of  the  doors  of  her  cell,  and 
the  appearance  of  the  head  gaoler  with  a  light.  Amine  started 
up — she  had  been  dreaming  of  her  husband — of  happiness  ' 
She  awoke  to  the  sad  reality.  There  stood  the  gaoler,  with 
a  dress  in  his  hand,  which  he  desired  she  should  put  on.  He 
lighted  a  lamp  for  her,  and  left  her  alone.  The  dress  was  of 
black  serge,  with  white  stripes. 
331 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

Amine  put  on  the  dress,  and  threw  herself  down  on  the 
bed,  trying,  if  possible,  to  recall  the  dream  from  which  she  had 
been  awakened,  but  in  vain.  Two  hours  passed  away,  and 
the  gaoler  again  entered,  and  summoned  her  to  follow  him. 
Perhaps  one  of  the  most  appalling  customs  of  the  Inquisition 
is,  that  after  accusation,  whether  the  accused  parties  confess 
their  guilt  or  not,  they  return  to  their  dungeons,  without  the 
least  idea  of  what  may  have  been  their  sentence,  and  when 
summoned  on  the  morning  of  the  execution  they  are  equally 
kept  in  ignorance. 

The  prisoners  were  all  summoned  by  the  gaolers  f-om  the 
various  dungeons,  and  led  into  a  large  hall,  where  they  found 
their  fellow-sufferers  collected. 

In  this  spacious,  dimly-lighted  hall,  were  to  be  seen  about 
two  hundred  men,  standing  up,  as  if  for  support,  against  the 
walls,  all  dressed  in  the  same  black  and  white  serge ;  so 
motionless,  so  terrified  were  they,  that  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  rolling  of  their  eyes,  as  they  watched  the  gaolers,  who 
passed  and  repassed,  you  might  have  imagined  them  to  be 
petrified.  It  was  the  agony  of  suspense,  worse  than  the  agony 
of  death.  After  a  time  a  wax  candle,  about  five  feet  long, 
was  put  into  the  hands  of  each  prisoner,  and  then  some  were 
ordered  to  put  on  over  their  dress  the  Sanbenitos — others  the 
Sama'rias/  Those  who  received  these  dresses,  with  flames 
painted  on  them,  gave  themselves  up  for  lost ;  and  it  was 
dreadful  to  perceive  the  anguish  of  each  individual  as  the 
dresses  were,  one  by  one,  brought  forward,  and  with  the  heavy 
drops  of  perspiration  on  his  brow,  he  watched  with  terror  lest 
one  should  be  presented  to  him.  All  was  doubt,  fear,  and 
horror ! 

But  the  prisoners  in  this  hall  were  not  those  who  were  to 
suffer  death.  Those  who  wore  the  Sanbenitos  had  to  walk  fn 
the  procession,  and  receive  but  slight  punishment ;  those  who 
wore  the  Samarias  had  been  condemned,  but  had  been  saved 
from  the  consuming  fire  by  an  acknowledgment  of  their 
offence  ;  the  flames  painted  on  their  dresses  were  reversed, 
and  signified  that  they  were  not  to  suffer ;  but  this  the  un- 
fortunate wretches  did  not  know,  and  the  horrors  of  a  cruel 
death  stared  them  in  the  face  ! 

Another  hall,  similar  to  the  one  in  which  the  men  had  been 
collected,  was  occupied  by  female  culprits.  The  sarce  cere- 
332 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

monies  were  observed — the  same  doubt,  fear,  and  agony,  were 
depicted  upon  every  countenance.  But  there  was  a  third 
chamber,  smaller  than  the  other  two,  and  this  chamber  was 
reserved  for  those  who  had  been  sentenced,  and  who  were  to 
suffer  at  the  stake.  It  was  into  this  chamber  that  Amine  was 
led,  and  there  she  found  seven  other  prisoners,  dressed  in  the 
same  manner  as  herself;  two  only  were  Europeans,  the  other 
five  were  negro  slaves.  Each  of  these  had  his  confessor  with 
him,  and  was  earnestly  listening  to  his  exhortation.  A  monk 
approached  Amine,  but  she  waved  him  away  with  her  hand ; 
he  looked  at  her,  spat  on  the  floor,  and  cursed  her.  The 
head  gaoler  now  made  his  appearance  with  the  dresses  for 
those  who  were  in  this  chamber ;  these  were  Samarias,  only 
different  from  the  others,  inasmuch  as  the  flames  were  painted 
on  them  upwards  instead  of  down.  These  dresses  were  of 
grey  stuff,  and  loose,  like  a  waggoner's  frock ;  at  the  lower 
part  of  them,  both  before  and  behind,  was  painted  the  like- 
ness of  the  wearer,  that  is,  the  face  only,  resting  upon  a  burn- 
ing faggot,  and  surrounded  with  flames  and  demons.  Under 
the  portrait  was  written  the  crime  for  which  the  party 
suffered.  Sugar-loaf  caps,  with  flames  painted  on  them,  were 
also  brought  and  put  on  their  heads,  and  the  long  wax 
candles  were  placed  in  their  hands. 

Amine  and  the  others  condemned,  being  arrayed  in  these 
dresses,  remained  in  the  chambers  for  some  hours  before  it 
was  time  for  the  procession  to  commence,  for  they  had  been 
all  summoned  up  by  the  gaolers  at  about  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning. 

The  sun  rose  brilliantly,  much  to  the  joy  of  the  members  of 
the  Holy  Office,  who  would  not  have  had  the  day  obscured  on 
which  they  were  to  vindicate  the  honour  of  the  Church,  and 
to  prove  how  well  they  acted  up  to  the  mild  doctrines  of  the 
Saviour — those  of  charity,  goodwill,  forbearing  one  another, 
forgiving  one  another.  God  of  heaven  !  And  not  only  did 
those  of  the  Holy  Inquisition  rejoice,  but  thousands  and  thou- 
sands more,  who  had  flocked  from  all  parts  to  witness  the 
dreadful  ceremony,  and  to  hold  a  jubilee — many,  indeed, 
actuated  by  fanatical  superstition,  but  more  attended  from 
thoughtlessness  and  the  love  of  pageantry.  The  streets  an:l 
squares  through  which  the  procession  was  to  pass  were  filled 
at  an  early  hour.  Silks,  tapestries,  and  cloth  of  gold  and 
333 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

silver,  were  hung  over  the  balconies,  and  out  of  the  windows, 
in  honour  of  the  procession.  Every  balcony  and  window  was 
thronged  with  ladies  and  cavaliers  in  their  gayest  attire,  all 
waiting  anxiously  to  see  the  wretches  paraded  before  they 
suffered ;  but  the  world  is  fond  of  excitement,  and  where 
is  anything  so  exciting  to  a  superstitious  people  as  an 
auto-da-fe  ? 

As  the  sun  rose  the  heavy  bell  of  the  cathedral  tolled,  and 
all  the  prisoners  were  led  down  to  the  grand  hall,  that  the 
order  of  the  procession  might  be  arranged.  At  the  large 
entrance-door,  on  a  raised  throne,  sat  the  Grand  Inquisitor, 
encircled  by  many  of  the  most  considerable  nobility  and 
gentry  of  Goa.  By  the  Grand  Inquisitor  stood  his  secretary, 
and  as  the  prisoners  walked  past  the  throne,  and  their  names 
were  mentioned,  the  secretary  after  each  called  out  the 
names  of  one  of  those  gentlemen,  who  immediately  stepped 
forward,  and  took  his  station  by  the  prisoner.  These  people 
are  termed  godfathers ;  their  duty  is  to  accompany  and  be 
answerable  for  the  prisoner,  who  is  under  their  charge,  until 
the  ceremony  is  over.  It  is  reckoned  a  high  honour  con- 
ferred on  those  whom  the  Grand  Inquisitor  appoints  to  this 
office. 

At  last  the  procession  commenced.  First  was  raised  on 
high  the  standard  of  the  Dominican  order  of  monks,  for  the 
Dominican  order  were  the  founders  of  the  Inquisition,  and 
claimed  this  privilege  by  prescriptive  right.  After  the  banner, 
the  monks  themselves  followed  in  two  lines.  And  what  was 
the  motto  of  their  banner?— "Justitia  et  Misericordia!"  Then 
followed  the  culprits,  to  the  number  of  three  hundred,  each 
with  his  godfather  by  his  side,  and  his  large  wax  candle  lighted 
in  his  hand.  Those  whose  offences  have  been  most  venial  walk 
first ;  all  are  bareheaded  and  barefooted.  After  this  portion, 
who  wore  only  the  dress  of  black  and  white  serge,  came  those 
who  carried  the  Sanbenitos ;  then  those  who  wore  the  Samarias 
with  the  flames  reversed.  Here  there  was  a  separation  in  the 
procession,  caused  by  a  large  cross  with  the  carved  image  of 
our  Saviour  nailed  to  it,  the  face  of  the  image  carried  forward. 
This  was  intended  to  signify  that  those  in  advance  of  the 
crucifix,  and  upon  whom  the  Saviour  looked  down,  were  not  to 
suffer  ;  and  that  those  who  were  behjnd,  and  upon  whom  His 
back  was  turned,  were  cast  away,  to  perish  for  ever,  in  this 
234, 


THE   PHANTOM  SHIP 

World  and  the  next.  Behind  the  crucifix  followed  the  seven 
condemned  ;  and,  as  the  greatest  criminal,  Amine  walked  the 
last.  But  the  procession  did  not  close  here.  Behind  Amine 
were  five  effigies,  raised  high  on  poles,  clothed  in  the  same 
dresses,  painted  with  flames  and  demons.  Behind  each  effigy 
was  borne  a  coffin,  containing  a  skeleton  ;  the  effigies  were  of 
those  who  had  died  in  their  dungeon,  or  expired  under  the 
torture,  and  who  had  been  tried  and  condemned  after  their 
death,  and  sentenced  to  be  burnt.  These  skeletons  had  been 
dug  up  and  were  to  suffer  the  same  sentence  as,  had  they 
still  been  living  beings,  they  would  have  undergone.  The 
effigies  were  to  be  tied  to  the  stakes,  and  their  bones  were 
to  be  consumed.  Then  followed  the  members  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion ;  the  familiars,  monks,  priests,  and  hundreds  of  penitents, 
in  black  dresses,  which  concealed  their  faces,  all  with  the 
lighted  tapers  in  their  hands. 

It  was  two  hours  before  the  procession,  which  had  paraded 
through  almost  every  important  street  in  Goa,  arrived  at 
the  cathedral,  in  which  the  further  ceremonies  were  to  be 
gone  through.  The  barefooted  culprits  could  now  scarcely 
walk,  the  small  sharp  flints  having  so  wounded  their  feet, 
that  their  tracks  up  the  steps  of  the  cathedral  were  marked 
with  blood. 

The  grand  altar  of  the  cathedral  was  hung  with  black  cloth, 
and  lighted  up  with  hundreds  of  tapers.  On  one  side  of  it 
was  a  throne  for  the  Grand  Inquisitor,  on  the  other  a  raised 
platform  for  the  Viceroy  of  Goa  and  his  suite.  The  centre 
aisle  had  benches  for  the  prisoners,  and  their  godfathers  ;  the 
other  portions  of  the  procession  falling  off  to  the  right  and  left 
to  the  side  aisles,  and  mixing  for  the  time  with  the  spectators. 
As  the  prisoners  entered  the  cathedral,  they  were  led  into 
their  seats,  those  less  guilty  sitting  nearest  to  the  altar,  and 
those  who  were  condemned  to  suffer  at  the  stake  being  placed 
the  farthest  from  it. 

The  bleeding  Amine  tottered  to  her  seat,  and  longed  for 
the  hour  which  was  to  sever  her  from  a  Christian  world. 
She  thought  not  of  herself,  nor  of  what  she  was  to  suffer : 
she  thought  but  of  Philip ;  of  his  being  safe  from  these 
merciless  creatures — of  the  happiness  of  dying  first,  and  of 
meeting  him  again  in  bliss. 

Worn  with  long  confinement,  with  suspense  and  anxiety, 
335 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

fatigued  and  suffering  from  her  painful  walk  and  the  exposure 
to  the  burning  sun,  after  so  many  months'  incarceration  in  a 
dungeon,  she  no  longer  shone  radiant  with  beauty ;  but  still 
there  was  something  even  more  touching  in  her  careworn, 
yet  still  perfect  features.  The  object  of  universal  gaze,  she 
walked  with  her  eyes  cast  down,  and  nearly  closed ;  but 
occasionally,  when  she  did  look  up,  the  fire  that  flashed  from 
them  spoke  the  proud  soul  within,  and  many  feared  and 
wondered,  while  more  pitied  that  one  so  young,  and  still 
so  lovely,  should  be  doomed  to  such  an  awful  fate.  Amine 
had  not  taken  her  seat  in  the  cathedral  more  than  a  few 
seconds  when,  overpowered  by  her  feelings  and  by  fatigue, 
she  fell  back  in  a  swoon. 

Did  no  one  step  forward  to  assist  her?  to  raise  her  up, 
and  offer  her  restoratives  ?  No — not  one.  Hundreds  would 
have  done  so,  but  they  dared  not :  she  was  an  outcast,  ex- 
communicated, abandoned,  and  lost,  and  should  any  one, 
moved  by  compassion  for  a.  suffering  fellow-creature,  have 
ventured  to  raise  her  up,  he  would  have  been  looked  upon 
with  suspicion,  and  most  probably  have  been  arraigned, 
and  have  had  to  settle  the  affair  of  conscience  with  the 
Holy  Inquisition. 

After  a  short  time  two  of  the  officers  of  the  Inquisition  went 
to  Amine  and  raised  her  again  in  her  seat,  and  she  recovered 
sufficiently  to  enable  her  to  retain  her  posture. 

A  sermon  was  then  preached  by  a  Dominican  monk,  in  which 
he  portrayed  the  tender  mercies,  the  paternal  love  of  the  Holy 
Office.  He  compared  the  Inquisition  to  the  ark  of  Noah,  out  of 
which  all  the  animals  walked  after  the  deluge  ;  but  with  this 
difference,  highly  in  favour  of  the  Holy  Office,  that  the  animals 
went  forth  from  the  ark  no  better  than  they  went  in,  whereas 
those  who  had  gone  into  the  Inquisition  with  all  the  cruelty  of 
disposition  and  with  the  hearts  of  wolves,  came  out  as  mild 
and  patient  as  lambs. 

The  public  accuser  then  mounted  the  pulpit,  and  read  from 
it  all  the  crimes  of  those  who  had  been  condemned,  and  the 
punishments  which  they  were  to  undergo.  Each  prisoner,  as 
his  sentence  was  read,  was  brought  forward  to  the  pulpit  by 
the  officers,  to  hear  it,  standing  up,  with  his  wax-candle  lighted 
in  his  hand.  As  soon  as  the  sentences  of  all  those  whose  lives 
had  been  spared  were  read,  the  Grand  Inquisitor  put  on  his 
336 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

priestly  robes,  and  followed  by  several  others,  took  off  from 
them  the  ban  of  excommunication  (which  they  were  supposed 
to  have  fallen  under),  by  throwing  holy  water  on  them  with  a 
small  broom. 

As  soon  as  this  portion  of  the  ceremony  was  over,  those 
who  were  condemned  to  suffer,  and  the  effigies  of  those 
who  had  escaped  by  death,  were  brought  out  one  by  one, 
and  their  sentences  read  ;  the  winding  up  of  the  condemna- 
tion of  all  was  in  the  same  words,  "that  the  Holy  Inquisition 
found  it  impossible,  on  account  of  the  hardness  of  their 
hearts  and  the  magnitude  of  their  crimes,  to  pardon  them. 
With  great  concern  it  handed  them  over  to  secular  justice 
to  undergo  the  penalty  of  the  laws ;  exhorting  the  autho- 
rities at  the  same  time  to  show  clemency  and  mercy  towards 
the  unhappy  wretches,  and  if  they  must  suffer  death,  that  at 
all  events  it  might  be  without  the  spilling  of  blood."  What 
mockery  was  this  apparent  intercession  not  to  shed  blood, 
when,  to  comply  with  their  request,  they  substituted  the  tor- 
ment and  agony  of  the  stake  ! 

Amine  was  the  last  who  was  led  forward  to  the  pulpit,  which 
was  fixed  against  one  of  the  massive  columns  of  the  centre 
aisle,  close  to  the  throne  occupied  bv  the  Grand  Inquisitor. 
"You,  Amine  Vanderdecken,"  cried  the  public  accuser.  At 
this  moment  an  unusual  bustle  was  heard  in  the  crowd  under 
the  pulpit ;  there  was  struggling  and  expostulation,,  and  the 
officers  raised  their  wands  for  silence  and  decorum — but  it 
continued. 

"  You,  Amine  Vanderdecken,  being  accused — 

Another  violent  struggle ;  and  from  the  crowd  darted  a 
young  man,  who  rushed  to  where  Amine  was  standing,  and 
caught  her  in  his  arms. 

"  Philip  !  Philip  ! "  screamed  Amine,  falling  on  his  bosom  ; 
as  he  caught  her,  the  cap  of  flames  fell  off  her  head  and  rolled 
along  the  marble  pavement.  "  My  Amine — my  wife — my 
adored  one — is  it  thus  we  meet  ?  My  lord,  she  is  innocent. 
Stand  off,  men,"  continued  he  to  the  officers  of  the  Inquisition, 
who  would  have  torn  them  asunder — "  stand  off,  or  your  lives 
shall  answer  for  it." 

This  threat  to  the  officers,  and  the  defiance  of  all  rules, 
were  not  to  be  borne ;  the  whole  cathedral  was  in  a  state 
pf  commotion,  and  the  solemnity  of  the  ceremony  wasf 
231 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

about  to  be  compromised.  The  Viceroy  au;l  his  followers 
had  risen  from  their  chairs  to  observe  what  was  passing,  and 
the  crowd  was  pressing  on,  when  the  Grand  Inquisitor  gave 
his  directions,  and  other  officers  hastened  to  the  assistance 
of  the  two  who  had  led  Amine  forward,  and  proceeded  to 
disengage  her  from  Philip's  arms.  The  struggle  was  severe. 
Philip  appeared  to  be  endued  with  the  strength  of  twenty 
men;  and  it  was  some  minutes  before  they  could  succeed 
in  separating  him  ;  and  when  they  had  so  clone,  his  struggles 
were  dreadful. 

Amine  also,  held  by  two  of  the  familiars,  shrieked,  as  she 
attempted  once  more,  but  in  vain,  to  rush  into  her  husband's 
arms.  At  last,  by  a  tremendous  effort,  Philip  released  himself; 
but  as  soon  as  he  was  released,  he  sank  down  helpless  on  the 
pavement ;  the  exertion  had  caused  the  bursting  of  a  blood- 
vessel, and  he  lay  without  motion. 

"  O  God  !  O  God !  they  have  killed  him !  monsters— 
murderers ! — let  me  embrace  him  but  once  more  ! "  cried 
Amine  frantically. 

A  priest  now  stepped  forward —it  was  Father  Math ias — with 
sorrow-in  his  countenance  ;  he  desired  some  of  the  bystanders 
to  carry  out  Philip  Vanderdecken,  and  Philip,  in  a  state  of 
insensibility,  was  borne  away  from  the  sight  of  Amine,  the 
blood  streaming  from  his  mouth. 

Amine's  sentence  was  read — she  heard  it  not,  her  brain  was 
bewildered.  She  was  led  back  to  her  seat,  and  then  it  was 
that  all  her  courage,  all  her  constancy  and  fortitude  gave  way  ; 
and  during  the  remainder  of  the  ceremony,  she  filled  the 
cathedral  with  her  wild  hysterical  sobbing ;  all  entreaties  or 
threats  being  wholly  lost  upon  her. 

All  was  now  over,  except  the  last  and  most  tragical  scene  of 
the  drama.  The  culprits  who  had  been  spared  were  led  back 
to  the  Inquisition  by  their  godfathers,  and  those  who  had 
been  sentenced  were  taken  down  to  the  banks  of  the  river  to 
suffer.  It  was  on  a  large  open  space,  on  the  left  of  the 
custom-house,  that  this  ceremony  was  to  be  gone  through. 
As  in  the  cathedral,  raised  thrones  were  prepared  for  the 
Grand  Inquisitor  and  the  Viceroy,  who,  in  state,  headed  the 
procession,  followed  by  an  immense  concourse  of  people. 
Thirteen  stakes  had  been  set  up,  eight  for  the  living,  five  for 
the  dead.  The  executioners  were  sitting  on,  or  standing 
038 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

T>y,  the  piles  of  wood  and  fagots,  waiting  for  their  victims. 
A  mine  could  not  walk ;  she  was  at  first  supported  by  the 
familiars,  and  then  carried  hv  them  to  the  stake  which  had 
been  assigned  for  her.  When  they  put  her  on  her  feet  oppo- 
site to  it,  her  courage  appeared  to  revive,  she  walked  boldly 
up,  folded  her  arms  and  leant  against  it. 

The  executioners  now  commenced  their  office :  the  chains 
were  passed  round  Amine's  body — the  wood  and  fagots  piled 
around  her.  The  same  preparations  had  been  made  with  all 
the  other  culprits,  and  the  confessors  stood  by  the  side  of  each 
victim.  Amine  waved  her  hand  indignantly  to  those  who 
approached  her,  when  Father  Mathias,  almost  breathless, 
made  his  appearance  from  the  crowd,  through  which  he  had 
forced  his  way. 

"  Amine  Vanderdecken — unhappy  woman  !  had  you  been 
counselled  by  me  this  would  not  have  been.  Now  it  is  too 
late,  but  not  too  late  to  save  your  soul.  Away  then  with  this 
obstinacy — this  hardness  of  heart ;  call  upon  the  blessed 
Saviour,  that  He  may  receive  your  spirit — call  upon  His 
wounds  for  mere}'.  It  is  the  eleventh  hour,  but  not  too  late. 
Amine,"  continued  the  old  man,  with  tears,  "  I  implore  you, 
I  conjure  you.  At  least,  may  this  load  of  trouble  be  taken 
from  my  heart." 

"  '  Unhappy  woman  I '  you  say  ?  "  replied  she,  "  say  rather, 
'  unhappy  priest : '  for  Amine's  sufferings  will  soon  be  over, 
while  you  must  still  endure  the  torments  of  the  damned. 
Unhappy  was  the  day  when  my  husband  rescued  you  from 
death.  Still  more  unhappy  the  compassion  which  prompted 
him  to  offer  you  an  asylum  and  a  refuge.  Unhappy  the 
knowledge  of  you  from  the  Jirst  day  to  the  last.  I  leave 
you  to  your  conscience  —  if  conscience  you  retain ;  nor 
would  I  change  this  cruel  death  for  the  pangs  which  you 
in  your  future  life  will  suffer.  Leave  me — I  die  in  the  faith 
of  my  forefathers,  and  scorn  a  creed  that  warrants  such  a 
scene  as  this." 

"Amine  "Vanderdecken,"  cried  the  priest  on  his  knees, 
clasping  his  hands  in  agony. 

"  Leave  me,  father." 

"  There  is  but  a  minute  left — for  the  love  of  God " 

"  I  tell  you  then,  leave  me — that  minute  is  my  own." 

Father  Mathias  turned  away  in  despair,  and  the  tears 
339 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

coursed  down  the  old  man's  cheeks.  As  Aminfe  said,  his 
misery  was  extreme. 

The  head  executioner  now  inquired  of  the  confessors  whether 
the  culprits  died  in  the  true  faith  ?  If  answered  in  the  affir- 
mative, a  rope  was  passed  round  their  necks  and  twisted  to 
the  stake,  so  that  they  were  strangled  before  the  fire  was 
kindled.  All  the  other  culprits  had  died  in  this  manner  ;  and 
the  head  executioner  inquired  of  Father  Mathias  whether 
Amine  had  a  claim  to  so  much  mercy.  The  old  priest 
answered  not,  but  shook  his  head. 

The  executioner  turned  away.  After  a  moment's  pause, 
Father  Mathias  followed  him,  and  seized  him  by  the  arm, 
saying,  in  a  faltering  voice,  "  Let  her  not  suffer  long." 

The  Grand  Inquisitor  gave  the  signal,  and  the  fires  were  all 
lighted  at  the  same  moment.  In  compliance  with  the  request 
of  the  priest,  the  executioner  had  thrown  a  quantity  of  wet 
straw  upon  Amine's  pile,  which  threw  up  a  dense  smoke  be- 
fore it  burnt  into  flames. 

"Mother!  mother!  I  come  to  thee ! "  were  the  last  words 
heard  from  Amine's  lips. 

The  flames  soon  raged  furiously,  ascending  high  above  the 
top  of  the  stake  to  which  she  had  been  chained.  Gradually 
they  sunk  down  :  and  only  when  the  burning  embers  covered 
the  ground,  a  few  fragments  of  bones  hanging  on  the  chain 
were  all  that  remained  of  the  once  peerless  and  high-minded 
Amine. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

iEARS  have  passed  away  since  we  related  Amine's  sufferings 
and  cruel  death  ;  and  now  once  more  we  bring  Philip  Vander- 
decken  on  the  scene.  And  during  this  time,  where  has  he 
been  ?  A  lunatic — at  one  time  frantic,  chained,  coerced  with 
blows ;  at  others,  mild  and  peaceable.  Reason  occasionally 
appeared  to  burst  out  again,  as  the  sun  on  a  cloudy  day,  and 
then  it  was  again  obscured.  For  many  years  there  was  one 
who  watched  him  carefully,  and  lived  in  hope  to  witness  his 
return  to  a  sane  mind  ;  he  watched  in  sorrow  and  remorse — 
he  died  without  his  desires  being  gratified.  This  was  Father 
Mat!iias ! 

840 


THE  PHANTOM   SHIP 

The  cottage  at  Terneuse  had  long  fallen  into  ruin ;  for  many 
years  it  waited  the  return  of  its  owners,  and  at  last  the 
heirs-at-law  claimed  and  recovered  the  substance  of  Philip 
Vanderdecken.  Even  the  fate  of  Amine  had  passed  from  the 
recollection  of  most  people ;  although  her  portrait  over  burning 
coals,  with  her  crime  announced  beneath  it,  still  hangs,  as  is 
the  custom,  in  the  church  of  the  Inquisition — attracting,  from, 
its  expressive  beauty,  the  attention  of  the  most  careless 
passers-by. 

But  many,  many  years  have  rolled  away — Philip's  hair  is 
white — his  once  powerful  frame  is  broken  down — and  he 
appears  much  older  than  he  really  is.  He  is  now  sane  ;  but 
his  vigour  is  gone.  Weary  of  life,  all  he  wishes  for  is  to 
execute  his  mission — and  then  to  welcome  death. 

The  relic  has  never  been  taken  from  him  ;  he  has  been 
discharged  from  the  lunatic  asylum  and  has  been  provided 
with  the  means  of  returning  to  his  country.  Al;is  !  he  has 
now  no  country — no  home — nothing  in  the  world  to  induce 
him  to  remain  in  it.  All  he  asks  is— to  do  his  duty  and 
to  die. 

The  ship  was  ready  to  sail  for  Europe,  and  Philip  Vander- 
decken went  on  board — hardly  caring  whither  he  went.  To 
return  to  Terneuse  was  not  his  object ;  he  could  not  bear  the 
idea  of  revisiting  the  scene  of  so  much  happiness  and  so  much 
misery.  Amine's  form  was  engraven  on  his  heart,  and  he 
looked  forward  with  impatience  to  the  time  when  he  should 
be  summoned  to  join  her  in  the  land  of  spirits. 

He  had  awakened  as  from  a  dream,  after  so  many  years  of 
aberration  of  intellect.  He  was  no  longer  the  sincere  Catholic 
that  he  had  been  ;  for  he  never  thought  of  religion  without  his 
Amine's  cruel  fate  being  brought  to  his  recollection.  Still  he 
clung  on  to  the  relic — he  believed  in  that — and  that  only.  It 
was  his  god — his  creed — his  everything — the  passport  for 
himself  and  for  his  father  into  the  next  world — the  means 
whereby  he  should  join  his  Amine;  and  for  hours  would  he 
remain  holding  in  his  hand  that  object  so  valued — gazing  upon 
it — recalling  every  important  event  in  his  life,  from  the  death 
of  his  poor  mother,  and  his  first  sight  of  Amine,  to  the  last 
dreadful  scene.  It  was  to  him  a  journal  of  his  existence,  and 
on  it  were  fixed  all  his  hopes  for  the  future. 

"  When  !  oh  when  is  it  to  be  accomplished  ? "  was  the  con 
341 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

stant  subject  of  his  reveries.  "  Blessed  indeed  will  be  the  da? 
when  I  leave  this  world  of  hate,  and  seek  that  other  in  which 
*  the  weary  are  at  rest.'  " 

The  vessel  on  board  of  which  Philip  was  embarked  as  a 
passenger  was  the  Nostra  Senora  da  Monte,  a  brig  of  three 
hundred  tons,  bound  for  Lisbon.  The  captain  was  an  old 
Portuguese,  full  of  superstition,  and  fond  of  arrack — a  fondness 
rather  unusual  with  the  people  of  his  nation.  They  sailed 
from  Goa,  and  Philip  was  standing  abaft,  and  sadly  con- 
templating the  spire  of  the  cathedral,  in  which  he  had 
last  parted  with  his  wife,  when  his  elbow  was  touched,  and 
he  turned  round. 

"  Fellow-passenger,  again!"  said  a  well-known  voice — it  was 
that  of  the  pilot  Schriften. 

There  was  no  alteration  in  the  man's  appearance;  he  showed 
no  marks  of  declining  years ;  his  one  eye  glared  as  keenly 
as  ever. 

Philip  started,  not  only  at  the  sight  of  the  man,  but  at  the 
reminiscences  which  his  unexpected  appearance  brought  to 
his  mind.  It  was  but  for  a  second,  and  he  was  again  calm 
and  pensive. 

"  You  here  again,  Schriften  ?  "  observed  Philip.  "  I  trust 
your  appearance  forebodes  the  accomplishment  of  my  task." 

"  Perhaps  it  does,"  replied  the  pilot ;  "  we  both  are  weary." 
Philip  made  no  reply ;  he  did  .  lot  even  ask  Schriften  in  what 
manner  he  had  escaped  from  the  fort;  he  was  indifferent 
about  it ;  for  he  felt  that  the  man  had  a  charmed  life. 

"  Many  are  the  vessels  that  Vv-  been  wrecked,  Philip  Van- 
derdecken,  and  many  the  souls  summoned  to  their  account  by 
meeting  with  your  father's  ship,  while  you  have  been  so  long 
shut  up,"  observed  the  pilot. 

"  May  our  next  meeting  with  him  be  more  fortunate — may 
it  be  the  last !  "  replied  Philip. 

"  No,  no  '  rather  may  he  fulfil  his  doom,  and  sail  till  the  day 
of  judgment !"  replied  the  pilot,  with  emphasis. 

"Vile  caitiff!  I  have  a  foreboding  that  you  will  not  have 
your  detestable  wish.  Away  ! — leave  me  !  or  you  shall  find, 
that  although  this  head  is  blanched  by  misery,  this  arm  has 
still  some  power." 

Schriften  scowled  as  he  walked  away  ;  he  appeared  to  have 
some  fear  of  Philip,  although  it  was  not  equal  to  his  hate.  He 
342 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

now  resumed  his  former  attempts  of  stirring  up  the  ship's 
company  against  Philip,  declaring  that  he  was  a  Jonah,  who 
would  occasion  the  loss  of  the  ship,  and  that  he  was  connected 
with  the  Flying  Dutchman.  Philip  very  soon  observed  that  he 
was  avoided ;  and  he  resorted  to  counter-statements,  equally 
injurious  to  Schriften,  whom  he  declared  to  be  a  demon. 
The  appearance  of  Schriften  was  so  much  against  him,  while 
that  of  Philip,  on  the  contrary,  was  so  prepossessing,  that  the 
people  on  board  hardly  knew  what  to  think.  They  were 
divided;  some  were  on  the  side  of  Philip — some  on  that  of 
Schriften  ;  the  captain  and  many  others  looking  with  equal 
horror  upon  both,  and  longing  for  the  time  when  they  could 
be  sent  out  of  the  vessel. 

The  captain,  as  we  have  before  observed,  was  very  super- 
stitious, and  very  fond  of  his  bottle.  In  the  morning  he  would 
be  sober,  and  pray  ;  in  the  afternoon  he  would  be  drunk,  and 
swear  at  the  veiy  saints  whose  protection  he  had  invoked  but 
a  few  hours  before. 

"  May  holy  Saint  Antonio  preserve  us,  and  keep  us  from 
temptation,"  said  he,  on  the  morning  after  a  conversation  with 
the  passengers  about  the  Phantom  Ship.  "  All  the  saints  pro- 
tect us  from  harm,"  continued  he,  taking  off  his  hat  reveren- 
tially, and  crossing  himself.  "  Let  me  but  rid  myself  of  these 
two  dangerous  men  without  accident,  and  I  will  offer  up  a 
hundred  wax  candles,  of  three  ounces  each,  to  the  shrine  of 
the  Virgin,  upon  my  safe  anchoring  off  the  tower  of  Bclem." 
In  the  evening  he  changed  his  language. 

"Now,  if  that  Maldetto  Saint  Antonio  don't  help  us,  may 
he  feel  the  coals  of  hell  yet  !  damn  him,  and  his  pigs  too  ;  if 
he  has  the  courage  to  do  his  duty,  all  will  be  well ;  but 
he  is  a  cowardly  wretch,  he  cares  for  nobody,  and  will  not 
help  those  who  call  upon  him  in  trouble.  Carambo,  that 
for  you  ! "  exclaimed  the  captain,  looking  at  the  small  shrine 
of  the  saint  at  the  bittacle,  and  snapping  his  fingers  at  the 
image  ;  "  that  for  you,  you  useless  wretch,  who  never  help 
us  in  our  trouble.  The  Pope  must  canonise  some  better 
saints  for  us,  for  all  we  have  now  are  worn  out.  They 
could  do  something  formerly,  but  now  I  would  not  give 
two  ounces  of  gold  for  the  whole  calendar ;  as  for  you,  you 

lazy  old  scoundrel "  continued  the  captain,  shaking  his 

fist  at  poor  Saint  Antonio. 

243 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

The  ship  had  now  gained  off  the  southern  coast  of  Africa, 
and  was  about  one  hundred  miles  from  the  Lagullas  coast ; 
the  morning  was  beautiful,  a  slight  ripple  onty  turned  over 
the  waves,  the  breeze  was  light  and  steady,  and  the  vessel 
was  standing  on  a  wind,  at  the  rate  of  about  four  miles  an 
hour. 

"Blessed  be  the  holy  saints,"  said  the  captain,  who  had  just 
gained  the  deck ;  "  another  little  slant  in  our  favour,  and  we 
shall  lay  our  course.  Again,  I  say,  blessed  be  the  holy  saints, 
and  particularly  our  worthy  patron,  Saint  Antonio,  who  has 
taken  under  his  peculiar  protection  the  Nostra  Senora  da 
Monte.  We  have  a  prospect  of  fine  weather ;  come,  signors, 
let  us  down  to  breakfast,  and  after  breakfast  we  will  enjoy 
our  cigarros  upon  the  deck." 

But  the  scene  was  soon  changed ;  a  bank  of  clouds  rose  up 
from  the  eastward,  with  a  rapidity  that  to  the  seamen's  eyes 
was  unnatural,  and  it  soon  covered  the  whole  firmament ;  the 
sun  was  obscured,  and  all  was  one  deep  and  unnatural  gloom  ; 
the  wind  subsided,  and  the  ocean  was  hushed.  It  was  not 
exactly  dark,  but  the  heavens  were  covered  with  one  red  haze, 
which  gave  an  appearance  as  if  the  world  was  in  a  state  of 
conflagration. 

In  the  cabin  the  increased  darkness  was  first  observed 
by  Philip,  who  went  on  deck ;  he  was  followed  by  the 
captain  and  passengers,  who  were  in  a  state  of  amazement. 
It  was  unnatural  and  incomprehensive.  "  Now,  holy  Virgin, 
protect  us  ! — what  can  this  be  ?  "  exclaimed  the  captain,  in 
a  fright.  "  Holy  Saint  Antonio,  protect  us  ! — but  this  is 
awful." 

"  There — there  ! "  shouted  the  sailors,  pointing  to  the  beam 
of  the  vessel.  Every  eye  looked  over  the  gunnel  to  witness 
what  had  occasioned  such  exclamations.  Philip,  Schriften, 
and  the  captain  were  side  by  side.  On  the  beam  of  the  ship, 
not  more  than  two  cables'  length  distant,  they  beheld  slowly 
rising  out  of  the  water  the  tapering  masthead  and  spars  of 
another  vessel.  She  rose,  and  rose,  gradually  ;  her  topmasts 
and  topsail  yards,  with  the  sails  set,  next  made  their  appear- 
ance ;  higher  and  higher  she  rose  up  from  the  element.  Her 
lower  masts  and  rigging,  and,  lastly,  her  hull  showed  itself 
above  the  surface.  Still  she  rose  up,  till  her  ports,  with  her 
guns,  aud  at  last  the  whole  of  her  floatage  was  above  water, 
344 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

And  there  she  remained  close  to  them,  with  her  main-yard 
squared,  and  hove-to. 

"  Holy  Virgin  !  "  exclaimed  the  captain,  breathless  ;  K  I 
have  known  ships  to  go  down,  but  never  to  come  up  before. 
Now  will  I  give  one  thousand  candles,  of  ten  ounces  each,  to 
the  shrine  of  the  Virgin,  to  save  us  in  this  trouble.  One 
thousand  wax  candles  !  Hear  me,  Blessed  Lady,  ten  ounces 
each  !  Gentlemen,"  cried  the  captain  to  the  passengers,  who 
stood  aghast,  "  why  don't  you  promise  ?  —  promise,  I  say — 
promise,  at  all  events." 

"  The  Phantom  Ship  —  the  Flying  Dutchman,"  shrieked 
Schriften  ;  "  I  told  you  so,  Philip  Vanderdecken  ;  there  is 
your  father. — He,  he  !" 

Philip's  eyes  had  remained  fixed  on  the  vessel ;  he  per- 
ceived that  they  were  lowering  down  a  boat  from  her  quarter. 
"  It  is  possible,"  thought  he,  "  I  shall  now  be  permitted ! " 
and  Philip  put  his  hand  into  his  bosom  and  grasped  the 
relic. 

The  gloom  now  increased,  so  that  the  strange  vessel's  hull 
could  but  just  be  discovered  through  the  murky  atmosphere. 
The  seamen  and  passengers  threw  themselves  down  on  their 
knees,  and  invoked  their  saints.  The  captain  ran  down  for 
a  candle,  to  light  before  the  image  of  St.  Antonio,  which  he 
took  out  of  its  shrine  and  kissed  with  much  apparent  affection 
and  devotion,  and  then  replaced. 

Shortly  afterwards  the  splash  of  oars  was  heard  alongside, 
and  a  voice  calling  out,  "  I  say,  my  good  people,  give  us  a 
rope  from  forward." 

No  one  answered,  or  complied  with  the  request.  Schriften 
only  went  up  to  the  captain,  and  told  him  that  if  they  offered 
to  send  letters  they  must  not  be  received,  or  the  vessel  would 
be  doomed,  and  all  would  perish. 

A  man  now  made  his  appearance  from  over  the  gunnel,  at 
the  gangway.  "  You  might  as  well  have  let  me  had  a  side- 
rope,  my  hearties,"  said  he,  as  he  stepped  on  deck ;  "  where 
is  the  captain  ?  " 

"  Here,"  replied  the  captain,  trembling  from  head  to  foot. 
The  man  who  accosted  him  appeared  a  weather-beaten  sea- 
man, dressed  in  a  fur  cap  and  canvas  petticoats ;  he  held 
gome  letters  in  his  hand. 

"  What  do  you  want  ? "  at  last  screamed  the  captain, 
34$ 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"  Yes — what  do  you  want?"  continued  Schriften. — "He. 
he!" 

"  What,  you  here,  pilot  ?  "  observed  the  man  ;  "  well  —  I 
thought  you  had  gone  to  Davy's  locker  long  enough  ago  " 

"  He  !  he  !"  replied  Schriften,  turning  away. 

"  Why,  the  fact  is,  captain,  we  have  had  very  foul  weather, 
and  we  wish  to  send  letters  home;  I  do  believe  that  we 
shall  never  get  round  this  cape." 

"  I  can't  take  them,"  cried  the  captain. 

"  Can't  take  them  !  well,  it's  very  odd  ;  but  every  ship 
refuses  to  take  our  letters.  It's  very  unkind  ;  seamen  should 
have  a  feeling  for  brother  seamen,  especially  in  distress.  God 
knows,  we  wish  to  see  our  wives  and  families  again  ;  and  it 
would  be  a  matter  of  comfort  to  them  if  they  only  could  hear 
from  us." 

"  I  cannot  take  your  letters  —  the  saints  preserve  us  ! " 
replied  the  captain. 

"  We  have  been  a  long  while  out,"  said  the  seaman, 
shaking  his  head. 

"  How  long  ?  "  inquired  the  captain,  not  knowing  what  to 
say. 

"  We  can't  tell ;  our  almanac  was  blown  overboard,  and 
we  have  lost  our  reckoning.  We  never  have  our  latitude 
exact  now,  for  we  cannot  tell  the  sun's  declination  for  the 
right  day." 

"  Let  me  see  your  letters,"  said  Philip,  advancing  and 
taking  them  out  of  the  seaman's  hands. 

"They  must  not  be  touched  !  "  screamed  Schriften. 

"Out,  monster!"  replied  Philip;  "who  dares  interfere 
with  me  ?  " 

"Doomed — doomed— doomed  !"  shrieked  Schriften,  run- 
ning up  and  down  the  deck,  and  then  breaking  into  a  wild 
fit  of  laughter. 

"  Touch  not  the  letters,"  said  the  captain,  trembling  as  if 
in  an  ague  fit. 

Philip  m-ide  no  reply,  but  held  his  hand  out  for  the  letters. 

"  Here  is  one  from  our  second  mate  to  his  wife  at  Amster- 
dam, who  lives  on  Waser  Quay." 

"  Waser  Quay  has  long  been  gone,  my  good  friend  ;  there 
is  now  a  large  dock  for  ships  where  it  once  was,"  replied 
Philip. 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

w  Impossible  ! "  replied  the  man  ;  "  here  is  another  from  the 
boatswain  to  his  father,  who  lives  in  the  old  market-place." 

"The  old  market-place  has  long  been  pulled  down,  and 
there  now  stands  a  church  upon  the  spot." 

"  Impossible  ! "  replied  the  seaman  ;  "here  is  another  from 
myself  to  my  sweetheart,  Vrow  Ketser — with  money  to  buy 
her  a  new  brooch." 

Philip  shook  his  head.  "  I  remember  seeing  an  old  lady 
of  that  name  buried  some  thirty  years  ago." 

"  Impossible  !  I  left  her  young  and  blooming.  Here's  one 
for  the  house  of  Slutz  &  Co.,  to  whom  the  ship  belongs." 

"  There's  no  such  house  now,"  replied  Philip ;  "  but  I 
have  heard  that  many  years  ago  there  was  a  firm  of  that 
name." 

"  Impossible !  you  must  be  laughing  at  me.  Here  is  a 
letter  from  our  captain  to  his  son — 

"  Give  it  me,"  cried  Philip,  seizing  the  letter.  He  was 
about  to  break  the  seal,  when  Schriften  snatched  it  out  of 
his  hand,  and  threw  it  over  the  lee  gunnel. 

.  "  That's  a  scurvy  trick  for  an  old  shipmate,"  observed  the 
seaman.  Schriften  made  no  reply,  but  catching  up  the  other 
letters,  which  Philip  had  laid  down  on  the  capstan,  he  hurled 
them  after  the  first. 

The  strange  seaman  shed  tears,  and  walked  again  to  the 
side.  "  It  is  very  hard — very  unkind,"  observed  he,  as  he 
descended  ;  "  the  time  may  come  when  you  may  wish  that 
your  family  should  know  your  situation."  So  saying,  he  dis- 
appeared. In  a  few  seconds  was  heard  the  sound  of  the  oars 
retreating  from  the  ship. 

"  Holy  Saint  Antonio  !  "  exclaimed  the  captain.  "  I  am 
lost  in  wonder  and  fright.  Steward,  bring  me  up  the 
arrack." 

The  steward  ran  down  for  the  bottle ;  being  as  much 
alarmed  as  his  captain,  he  helped  himself  before  he  brought 
it  up  to  his  commander.  "  Now,"  said  the  captain,  after 
keeping  his  mouth  for  two  minutes  to  the  bottle,  and  drain- 
ing it  to  the  bottom,  "what  is  to  be  done  next  ?" 

"  I'll  tell  you,"  said  Schriften,  going  up  to  him  :  "  that  man 
there  has  a  charm  hung  round  his  neck  ;  take  it  from  him  and 
throw  it  overboard,  and  your  ship  will  be  saved  ;  if  not,  it  will 
be  lost,  with  every  soul  on  board." 
94,7 


THE  PHANTOM  SHIP 

"Yes,  yes,  it's  all  right,  depend  upon  it,"  cried  the  s,  ilors. 

"  Fools,"  replied  Philip,  "  do  you  believe  that  wretch  ?  Did 
you  not  hear  the  man  who  came  on  board  recognise  him,  and 
call  him  shipmate  ?  He  is  the  party  whose  presence  on  board 
will  prove  so  unfortunate." 

"Yes,  yes,"  cried  the  sailors,  "it's  all  right;  the  man  did 
call  him  shipmate." 

"I  tell  you  it's  all  wrong,"  cried  Schriften ;  "that  is  the 
man  ;  let  him  give  up  the  charm." 

(t  Yes,  yes  ;  let  him  give  up  the  charm,"  cried  the  sailors ; 
and  they  rushed  upon  Philip. 

Philip  started  back  to  where  the  captain  stood.  "  Mad- 
men, know  ye  what  ye  are  about  ?  It  is  the  holy  cross  that 
I  wear  round  my  neck.  Throw  it  overboard  if  you  dare,  and 
your  souls  are  lost  for  ever;"  and  Philip  took  the  relic  from 
his  bosom  and  showed  it  to  the  captain. 

"No,  no,  men,"  exclaimed  the  captain,  who  was,  now 
more  settled  in  his  nerves  ;  "  that  won't  do — the  saints 
protect  us." 

The  seamen,  however,  became  clamorous  ;  one  portion  were 
for  throwing  Schriften  overboard,  the  other  for  throwing 
Philip ;  at  last  the  point  was  decided  by  the  captain,  who 
directed  the  small  skiff  hanging  astern  to  be  lowered  down, 
and  ordered  both  Philip  and  Schriften  to  get  into  it.  The 
seamen  approved  of  this  arrangement,  as  it  satisfied  both 
parties.  Philip  made  no  objection ;  Schriften  screamed  and 
fought,  but  he  was  tossed  into  the  boat.  There  he  remained 
trembling  in  the  stern-sheets,  while  Philip,  who  had  seized 
the  sculls,  pulled  away  from  the  vessel  in  the  direction  of  the 
Phantom  Ship. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

IN  a  few  minutes  the  vessel  which  Philip  and  Schriften  had 
left  was  no  longer  to  be  discerned  through  the  thick  haze ; 
the  Phantom  Ship  was  still  in  sight,  but  at  a  much  greater 
distance  from  them  than  she  was  before.  Philip  pulled  hard 
towards  her,  but  although  hove-to,  she  appeared  to  increase 
her  distance  from  the  boat.  For  a  short  time  he  paused  on 
his  oars,  to  regain  his  breath,  when  Schriften  rose  up  and 
348 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

took  his  seat  in  the  stern-sheets  of  the  boat.  "  You  may  pull 
and  pull,  Philip  Vanderdecken/'  observed  Schriften ;  "  but 
you  will  not  gain  that  ship- — no,  no,  that  cannot  be — we  may 
have  a  long  cruise  together,  but  you  will  be  as  far  from  your 
object  at  the  end  of  it,  as  you  are  now  at  the  commencement. 
— Why  don't  you  throw  me  overboard  again  ?  You  would  be 
all  the  lighter.— He  J  he  ! " 

"  I  threw  you  overboard  in  a  state  of  frenzy/'  replied 
Philip,  "  when  you  attempted  to  force  from  me  my 
relic." 

"  And  have  I  not  endeavoured  to  make  others  take  it  from 
you  this  very  day  ? — Have  I  not  ? — He  !  he  ! " 

"You  have,"  rejoined  Philip;  "but  I  am  now  convinced 
that  you  are  as  unhappy  as  myself,  and  that  in  what  you  are 
doing,  you  are  only  following  your  destiny,  as  I  am  mine. 
Why  and  wherefore  I  cannot  tell,  but  we  are  both  engaged  in 
the  same  mystery  ; — if  the  success  of  my  endeavours  depends 
upon  guarding  the  relic,  the  success  of  yours  depends  upon 
your  obtaining  it,  and  defeating  my  purpose  by  so  doing.  In 
this  matter  we  are  both  agents,  and  you  have  been,  as  far 
as  my  mission  is  concerned,  my  most  active  enemy.  But, 
Schriften,  I  have  not  forgotten,  and  never  will,  that  you 
kindly  did  advise  my  poor  Amine ;  that  you  prophesied  to  her 
what  would  be  her  fate  if  she  did  not  listen  to  your  counsel ; 
that  you  were  no  enemy  of  hers,  although  you  have  been  and 
are  still  mine.  Although  my  enemy,  for  her  sake  I  forgive 
you,  and  will  hot  attempt  to  harm  you." 

"  You  do  then  forgive  your  enemy,  Philip  Vanderdecken  ?  " 
replied  Schriften  mournfully,  "  for  such  I  acknowledge  my- 
self to  be." 

« I  do,  with  all  my  heart,  with  all  my  soul,"  replied  Philip. 

"Then  have  you  conquered  me,  Philip  Vanderdecken  ;  you 
have  now  made  me  your  friend,  and  your  wishes  are  about 
to  be  accomplished.  You  would  know  who  I  am.  Listen  : — - 
When  your  father,  defying  the  Almighty's  will,  in  his  rage 
took  my  life,  he  was  vouchsafed  a  chance  of  his  doom  being 
cancelled,  through  the  merits  of  his  son.  I  had  also  my  appeal, 
which  was  for  vengeance  ;  it  was  granted  that  I  should  remain 
on  earth,  and  thwart  your  will.  That  as  long  as  we  were 
enemies,  you  should  not  succeed  ;  but  that  when  you  had 
conformed  to  the  highest  attribute  of  Christianity,  proved  on 
349 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

the  holy  cross,  that  of  forgiving  your  enemy,  your  task  should  be 
fulfilled.  Philip  Vanderdecken,  you  have  forgiven  your  enemy, 
and  both  our  destinies  are  now  accomplished." 

As  Schriften  spoke,  Philip's  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him.  He 
extended  his  hand  to  Philip — it  was  taken ;  and  as  it  was 
pressed,  the  form  of  the  pilot  wasted  as  it  were  into  the  air, 
and  Philip  found  himself  alone. 

"  Father  of  Mercy,  I  thank  Thee,"  said  Philip,  "  that  my 
task  is  done,  and  that  I  again  may  meet  my  Amine." 

Philip  then  pulled  towards  the  Phantom  Ship,  and  found 
that  she  no  longer  appeared  to  leave ;  on  the  contrary,  every 
minute  he  was  nearer  and  nearer,  and  at  last  he  threw  in 
his  oars,  climbed  up  her  sides  and  gained  her  deck. 

The  crew  of  the  vessel  crowded  round  him. 

"  Your  captain,"  said  Philip ;  "  I  must  speak  with  your 
captain." 

"  Who  shall  I  say,  sir  ?  "  demanded  one  who  appeared  to 
be  the  first  mate. 

"  Who  ?  "  replied  Philip.  "  Tell  him  his  son  would  speak 
to  him,  his  son,  Philip  Vanderdecken." 

Shouts  of  laughter  from  the  crew  followed  this  answer  of 
Philip's  ;  and  the  mate,  as  soon  as  they  ceased,  observed,  with 
a  smile — • 

"  You  forget,  sir ;  perhaps  you  would  say  his  father." 

"Tell  him  his  son,  if  you  please,"  replied  Philip;  "take 
no  note  of  grey  hairs." 

"  Well,  sir,  here  he  is  coming  forward,"  replied  the  mate, 
stepping  aside,  and  pointing  to  the  captain. 

"  What  is  all  this  ?  "  inquired  the  captain. 

"Are  you  Philip  Vanderdecken,  the  captain  of  this 
vessel ?  " 

"  I  am,  sir,"  replied  the  other. 

"  You  appear  not  to  know  me  !  But  how  can  you  ?  you 
saw  me  but  when  I  was  only  three  years  old  ;  yet  may  you 
remember  a  letter  which  you  gave  to  your  wife." 

"  Ha  !  "  replied  the  captain  ;  "  and  who,  then,  are  you  ?  " 

"  Time  has  stopped  with  you,  but  with  those  who  live  in 
the  world  he  stops  not ;  and  for  those  who  pass  a  life  of 
misery,  he  hurries  on  still  faster.  In  me  behold  your  son, 
Philip  Vanderdecken,  who  has  obeyed  your  wishes ;  and, 
after  a  life  of  such  peril  and  misery  as  few  have  passed,  has 


;The  remnants  of  the  hull  floated  upon  the  water. 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

at  last  fulfilled  his  vow,  and  now  offers  to  his  father  the 
precious  relic  that  he  required  to  kiss." 

Philip  drew  out  the  relic,  and  held  it  towards  his  father. 
As  if  a  flash  of  lightning  had  passed  through  his  mind,  the 
captain  of  the  vessel  started  back,  clasped  his  hands,  fell  on 
his  knees,  and  wept. 

"My  son,  my  son!"  exclaimed  he,  rising  and  throwing  him- 
self into  Philip's  arms  ;  "  my  eyes  are  opened — the  Almighty 
knows  how  long  they  have  been  obscured."  Embracing  each 
other,  they  walked  aft,  away  from  the  men,  who  were  still 
crowded  at  the  gangway. 

"  My  son,  my  noble  son,  before  the  charm  is  broken — be- 
fore we  resolve,  as  we  must,  into  the  elements,  oh  !  let  me 
kneel  in  thanksgiving  and  contrition  :  my  son,  my  noble  son, 
receive  a  father's  thanks,"  exclaimed  Vanderdecken.  Then 
with  tears  of  joy  and  penitence  he  humbly  addressed  him- 
self to  that  Being  whom  he  once  so  awfully  defied. 

The  elder  Vanderdecken  knelt  down  ;  Philip  did  the  same  ; 
still  embracing  each  other  with  one  arm,  while  they  raised  on 
high  the  other,  and  prayed. 

For  the  last  time  the  relic  was  taken  from  the  bosom 
of  Philip  and  handed  to  his  father — and  his  father  raised 
his  eyes  to  heaven  and  kissed  it.  And,  as  he  kissed  it, 
the  long  tapering  upper  spars  of  the  Phantom  vessel,  the 
yards  and  sails  that  were  set,  fell  into  dust,  fluttered  in  the 
air,  and  sank  upon  the  wave.  The  mainmast,  foremast, 
bowsprit,  everything  above  the  deck,  crumbled  into  atoms 
and  disappeared. 

Again  he  raised  the  relic  to  his  lips,  and  the  work  of 
destruction  continued — the  heavy  iron  guns  sank  through 
the  decks  and  disappeared  ;  the  crew  of  the  vessel  (who 
were  looking  on)  crumbled  down  into  skeletons,  and  dust, 
and  fragments  of  ragged  garments  ;  and  there  were  none 
left  on  board  the  vessel  in  the  semblance  of  life  but  the 
father  and  son. 

Once  more  did  he  put  the  sacred  emblem  to  his  lips,  and 
the  beams  and  timbers  separated,  the  decks  of  the  vessel 
slowly  sank,  and  the  remnants  of  the  hull  floated  upon  the 
water;  and  as  the  father  and  son — the  one  young  and  vigorous, 
the  other  old  and  decrepid — still  kneeling,  still  embracing 
with  their  hands  raised  to  heaven,  sank  slowly  under  the 
351 


THE   PHANTOM   SHIP 

deep  blue  wave,  the  lurid  sky  was  for  a  moment  illuminated 
by  a  lightning  cross. 

Then  did  the  clouds  which  obscured  the  heavens  roll  away 
swift  as  thought — the  sun  again  burst  out  in  all  its  splendour 
— the  rippling  waves  appeared  to  dance  with  joy.  The  scream- 
ing sea-gull  again  whirled  in  the  air,  and  the  scared  albatross 
once  more  slumbered  on  the  wing.  The  porpoise  tumbled 
and  tossed  in  his  sportive  play,  the  albicore  and  dolphin 
leaped  from  the  sparkling  sea. — All  nature  smiled  as  if  it 
rejoiced  that  the  charm  was  dissolved  for  ever,  and  that  THE 
PHANTOM  SHIP  WAS  NO  MORE. 


OLLA    PODRIDA 


INTRODUCTION 

IjEFORE  I  commence,  it  may  be  as  well  to  observe  that 
there  is  a  certain  method  required,  even  in  writing  travels.  In 
every  chapter  you  should  have  certain  landmarks  to  guide  you. 
For  instance,  enumerate  the  following,  and  select  the  works 
from  which  they  may  be  obtained,  so  as  to  mix  up  the  in- 
structive with  the  amusing :  Travelling — remarks  on  country 
passed  through — anecdote — arrival  at  a  town — churches — 
population— historical  remarks  —  another  anecdote  —  eating 
and  drinking — natural  curiosities — egotism — remarks  on  the 
women  (never  mind  the  men) — another  anecdote— reflections 
— an  adventure — and  go  to  bed."  So  writes  Captain  Marryat 
in  the  little  skit  called  "  How  to  Write  a  Book  of  Travels," 
which  with  delightful  naivete  he  included  in  the  volume 
containing  his  own  "  Diary  on  the  Continent."  It  recounts 
how  a  certain  briefless  barrister,  with  the  aid  of  an  ingenious 
friend,  contrives  to  satisfy  his  importunate  creditors  by  "travel- 
ling post  in  his  arm-chair — a  very  pleasant  and  profitable  way 
of  travelling."  Profitable  in  a  double  sense,  if  travels  "which 
have  never. extended  farther  than  Lincoln's  Inn  Coffee-House 
for  his  daily  food,  and  a  walk  to  Hampstead  on  a  Sunday,"  are 
swelled  by  the  simple  method  of  subscribing  to  a  circulating 
library  into  "Travels  up  the  Rhine  in  the  Year  18 — ,"  and 
handsomely  remunerated  by  an  enterprising  publisher.  The 
necessities  of  the  impecunious  Mr.  Ansard  had  their  counter- 
part in  Marryat's  own  case.  Finding  in  1 834  that  the  "  no 
rent "  hitherto  returned  annually  from  his  Langham  estate  in 
Norfolk  was,  under  his  own  management,  rapidly  developing 
v 


INTRODUCTION 

into  an  annual  deficit,  he  betook  himself  in  1835  to  the 
Continent,  and  for  two  years  attempted,  like  so  many  of  his 
countrymen,  to  maintain  the  position  of  a  gentleman  at  a 
trifling  cost,  whilst  furnishing  a  record  of  his  experiences  to 
the  Metropolitan  Magazine, 

The  result  seems  to  have  disappointed  his  expectations ; 
the  superior  cheapness  of  life  on  the  Continent  he  declares 
to  be  a  fallacy,  and  he  assures  his  countrymen  that  they 
can  obtain  more  good  living  and  substantial  comforts  in 
England  at  less  expense  than  in  any  part  of  the  Continent 
they  may  fix  upon  as  their  habitation.  Meanwhile  he  was 
probably  making  a  very  fair  profit  on  the  sheets  at  sixteen 
guineas  each,  which  he  was  sending  home  to  the  Metropolitan. 
His  t(  Diary  on  the  Continent "  bears  unmistakable  signs  of 
being  composed  on  a  system  of  piece-work.  Sixty  years  ago, 
perhaps,  readers  were  more  tolerant,  but  one  wonders  whether 
even  a  popular  favourite  could  indulge  with  impunity  in  such 
longueurs  as  Captain  Marryat  allows  himself.  Whether  his 
letters  are  dated  from  Spa,  Brussels,  Strasbourg,  or  Lausanne 
appears  wholly  immaterial ;  it  is  far  more  likely  that  they  will 
deal  with  reminiscences  of  Burmah,  the  proper  distribution  of 
charity,  the  duties  of  sick  nurses,  anecdotes  of  birds  and  beasts, 
pr  the  present  condition  of  surgical  knowledge,  than  with  the 
national  characteristics  of  the  countries  through  which  the 
narrator  is  travelling,  or  the  -ccnciy  whjch  ii  before  his  eyes. 
In  short,  Marryat's  travels  come  perilously  near  to  realising 
his  own  burlesque  description ;  it  is  only  the  genial  spirit  of 
the  traveller  and  his  obvious  delight  in  his  own  production, 
"very  good  magazine  stuff","  as  he  himself  describes  it  in  a 
letter  to  his  mother,  that  saves  it  from  the  deserved  reproach 
of  being  nothing  but  most  indifferent  journalism.  Antres 
iempst  autres  mceurs.  We  are  no  longer  interested  in  the 
"anecdote — arrival  in  a  town^another  anecdote — reflections 
— -adventure — go  to  bed  "  style  of  writing,  and  we  should  be 
inclined  to  bring  against  our  author  the  charge  which  he 


INTRODUCTION 

himself  brings  against  rriaay  of  his  brother  authors,  that  they 
do  not  understand  the  great  art,  both  in  writing  and  in  every- 
thing else,  of  knowing  when  to  leave  off.  Captain  Marryat's 
forte  is  in  stirring  narrative;  he  will  live  by  such  tales  of 
adventure  as  "  Peter  Simple  "  and  «  Mr.  Midshipman  Easy," 
certainly  not  by  a  diary  which  is  "not  a  diary  of  events,  but 
of  thoughts  and  reminiscences,  thrown  up  and  caught  as  they 
float  to  the  surface  in  the  whirlpool  of  my  brain." 

Two  things  there  are,  however,  which  cannot  but  strike  the 
diarist's  present-day  readers — one  the  extreme  modernity  of 
the  views  expressed  on  foreign  politics,  and  the  other  the 
equally  archaic  and  elementary  character  of  the  humour  of 
sixty  years  since.  Have  we  really  progressed  so  little  since 
the  beginning  of  the  present  reign,  in  spite  of  the  frequent 
remodelling  of  the  map  of  Europe,  and  the  enormous  growth 
of  naval  and  military  armaments,  that  the  European  situation 
remains  in  1897  what  it  was  in  1837  ?  It  looks  like  it  when 
we  find  Captain  Marryat  gravely  considering  the  possibilities 
for  and  against  a  Russian  invasion  of  India,  and  deciding  that 
on  the  whole  it  is  improbable,  and  that  Russia,  on  the  contrary, 
is  our  one  natural  ally  amongst  the  European  powers.  An 
alliance  with  France  seems  to  him  a  moral  impossibility,  for 
"our  interests  are  separate  and  conflicting,  and  our  jealousy 
but  sleeps  for  the  moment."  So,  too,  with  America  ;  and  since 
whenever  we  go  to  war  with  France  America  will  back  her 
up,  it  is  clearly  in  our  interest  to  have  the  Russian  navy  on 
our  side  against  the  combined  fleets  of  France  and  the  United 
States;  This  is  so  clearly  perceived  by  French  statesmen,  that 
they  lose  no  opportunity  of  exciting  jealousies  between  Russia 
and  this  country.  Might  one  not  be  listening  to  the  latest 
utterances  of  a  contemporary  politician,  instead  of  to  the  re- 
flections of  an  old  naval  officer  trained  in  the  Napoleonic  wars  ? 

But  Captain  Marryat's  humour  is  as  much  belated  as  his 
politics  are  up  to  date.  It  is  difficult  to  realise  that  any  but 
an  illiterate  public  can  ever  have  relished  the  vulgarities  of 


INTRODUCTION 

the  Channel  voyage  chapters,  and  their  introduction  is  the 
more  curious  when  one  turns  to  the  page  in  the  burlesque, 
where  our  author  parodies  the  inevitable  traveller's  tale  of 
mal  de  mer.  There  are  anecdotes,  too,  scattered  here  and 
there  through  the  Diary  which  must  needs  induce  a  desperate 
melancholy,  like  that  terrible  tale  told  of  Marryat  himself, 
when  he  had  kept  silence  throughout  a  dinner  of  literary 
celebrities :  "  Why,  did  you  imagine  that  I  was  going  to  let 
out  any  of  my  jokes  for  those  fellows  to  put  into  their  next 
books?  No,  that  is  not  my  plan.  When  I  find  myself  in 
such  company  as  that,  I  open  my  ears  and  hold  my  tongue, 
glean  all  I  can  and  give  them  nothing  in  return."  This  disas- 
trous attempt  at  repartee  seems  to  have  proved  more  satis- 
factory to  its  author  than  it  deserved,  for  he  introduces  it  as 
an  air  with  variations  into  his  Diary,  putting  it  into  the  mouth 
of  a  lady  of  fashion,  who  prices  "a  clever  author's"  unex- 
pressed ideas  at  a  modest  three-and-sixpence  each,  and  twisting 
and  turning  it  into  six  pages  of  reflections  on  the  social  position 
of  authors.  What  a  debt  of  gratitude,  too,  does  not  a  man 
owe  to  Providence  that  he  was  not  born  in  an  age  when  the 
ring  of  a  bell  could  remind  him  of  a  Peel,  and  as  he  mounted 
the  stairs  he  must  needs  think  of  the  "  Lobby."  Fancy 
dancing  with  a  partner  who  "  tapped  you  with  her  fan  that  she 
might  tap  your  politics,"  and  "shook  her  nng  against  your 
Tory."  Even  a  degenerate  age  has  its  compensations  ;  if  we 
have  lost  the  robustness  of  the  century's  youth,  it  is  something 
to  have  been  delivered  from  its  propensity  for  puns. 

Of  the  other  constituents  of  "  Olla  Podrida,"  few  call  for 
special  notice.  "  The  Sky  Blue  Domino  "  is  neither  better 
nor  worse  than  many  of  the  romantic  episodes  scattered 
throughout  the  novels ;  it  is  certainly  inferior  to  such  thrill- 
ing narratives  as  that  of  the  monk  in  the  "  Pasha  of  Many 
Tales."  "  Moonshine "  is  a  painful  example  of  Captain 
Mairyat's  humour  at  its  slenderest ;  the  attempt  at  the 
supernatural,  conceived  in  a  somewhat  comic  spirit,  in  "  S.W. 
and  by  W.  ^  W.,"  is  not  a  conspicuous  success  ;  and  the 
viii 


INTRODUCTION 

moralities  in  the  style  of  Miss  Edgeworth,  with  which  we  are 
confronted  in  "  Modern  Town  Houses  "  and  "  The  Way  to 
be  Happy,"  will  not  detain  the  reader  long.  But  in  "  How 
to  Write  a  Fashionable  No* el"  Captain  Marryat  has  scored 
a  genuine  success,  repeated  on  a  somewhat  lower  level  in 
"How  to  Write  a  Book  of  Travels,"  and  gradually  dwindling 
away  in  "  How  to  Write  a  Romance."  The  first  of  these 
three  skits,  with  its  admirable  parodies  of  Disraeli  and 
Bulwer  Lytton,  is  conceived  in  the  happiest  vein  of  drollery. 
The  toilet  of  the  hero  in  a  fashionable  novel,  we  are  told,  de- 
mands at  least  five  chapters,  and  as  he  cannot  be  got  out  of  bed 
gracefully,  he  must  be  left  communing  with  his  soul  in  the 
style  of  Eugene  Aram  until  a  fresh  chapter  enables  him  to 
recommence  as  follows  :  " '  I  should  like  the  bath  at  seventy- 
six  and  a  half,  Coridon,'  observed  the  Honourable  Augustus 
Bouverie,  as  he  wrapped  his  embroidered  dressing-gown 
round  his  elegant  form,  and  sank  into  a  chaise  longue,  wheeled 
by  his  faithful  attendant  to  the  fire."  There,  as  the  in- 
genious friend  explains  to  the  puzzled  author,  "you  observe 
he  is  out  of  bed,  and  nothing  said  about  it,"  and  there  per- 
haps we  may  leave  him,  with  an  assurance  to  the  modem 
reader  that  if  he  will  but  pursue  the  developments  with 
which  Captain  Marryat  is  ready  to  supply  him,  he  will  him- 
self have  no  difficulty  in  constructing  "  a  most  fashionable 

novel."  W.  L.  C. 


June  1897. 


CONTENTS 


PA91 

DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT     .....  1 

SW.  AND  BY  W.  ^  W.        .....  205 

ILL-WILL         ........  221 

THE  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO           .....  238 

MODERN  TOWN  HOUSES          .....  253 

THE  WAY  TO  BE  HAPPY        .....  266 

How  TO  WRITE  A  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL           .         .  272 

How  TO  WRITE  A  BOOK  OF  TRAVELS     .         .         .  2.91 

How  TO  WRITE  A  ROMANCE           ....  303 

THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  BELL  ROCK  .         .         .         .313 

MOONSHINE    ...                                             .  323 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

DIARY    ON    THE    CONTINENT 
CHAPTER  I 

April  3,^1835. 

.TvEADER,  did  you  ever  feel  in  that  peculiarly  distressing 
state  of  mind  in  which  one  oppressing  idea  displaces  or  colours 
every  other,  absorbing,  intermingling  with,  empoisoning,  and, 
like  the  filth  of  the  Harpy,  turning  everything  into  disgust — 
when  a  certain  incubus  rides  upon  the  brain,  as  the  Old  Man 
of  the  Mountain  did  upon  the  shoulders  of  Sindbad,  burden- 
ing, irritating,  and  rendering  existence  a  misery — when,  look- 
ing around,  you  see  but  one  object  perched  everywhere  and 
grinning  at  you — when  even  what  you  put  into  your  mouth 
tastes  of  but  that  one  something,  and  the  fancied  taste  is  so 
unpleasant  as  almost  to  prevent  deglutition — when  every 
sound  which  vibrates  in  your  ear  appears  to  strike  the  same 
discordant  note,  and  all  and  everything  will  remind  you  of  the 
one  only  thing  which  you  would  fain  forget ;— have  you  ever 
felt  anything  like  this,  reader  ?  If  you  have  not,  then,  thank 
God,  by  way  of  grace,  before  you  out  with  your  knife  and  fork 
and  begin  to  cut  up  the  contents  of  these  pages. 

I  have  been  and  am  now  suffering  under  one  of  these 
varieties  of  "  phobias,"  and  my  disease  is  a  Politicophobia.  I 
and  begin  will  describe  the  symptoms. 

I  am  now  in  the  metropolis  of  England,  and  when  I  walk 
out  every  common  house  appears  to  me  to  be  the  House  of 
Commons — every  lordly  mansion  the  House  of  Lords — every 
man  I  meet,  instead  of  being  a  member  of  society,  is  trans- 
formed by  imagination  into  a  member  of  the  senate — every 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

chimney-sweep  into  a  bishop,  and  a  Bavarian  girl,  with  her 
"  Py  a  proovn,"  into  an  ex -chancellor.  If  I  return  home,  the 
ring  at  the  bell  reminds  me  of  a  Peel— as  I  mount  the  stairs 
I  think  of  the  "  Lobby  " — I  throw  myself  on  the  sofa,  and  the 
cushion  is  transformed  into  a  woolsack — if  a  solitary  visitor 
calls  in,  I  imagine  a  public  meeting,  and  call  out  "  chair ! 
chair  ! " — and  I  as  often  address  my  wife  as  "  Mr.  Speaker," 
as  I  do  with  the  usual  appellative  of  "my  dear/' 

This  incubus,  like  the  Catholic  anathema,  pursues  me  every- 
where— at  breakfast  the  dry  toast  reminds  me  of  the  toasts  at 
public  dinners — tea,  of  the  East  India  charter — sugar,  of  the 
West  India  question — the  loaf,  of  agricultural  distress — and, 
as  every  one  knows  that  London  eggs  are  a  lottery,  according 
as  they  prove  bad  or  good,  so  am  I  reminded  of  a  Whig  or 
Tory  measure.  When  the  newspaper  is  brought  in,  I  walk 
round^nd  round  it  as  a  dog  will  do  round  the  spot  he  is  about 
to  lie  down  upon.  I  would  fain  not  touch  it ;  but  at  last,  like 
a  fascinated  bird  who  falls  perforce  into  the  reptile's  mouth, 
so  do  I  plunge  into  its  columns,  read  it  with  desperation,  and 
when  the  poison  has  circulated,  throw  it  away  in  despair.  If  I 
am  reminded  to  say  grace  at  dinner,  I  commence  "  My  lords 
and  gentlemen";  and  when  I  seek  my  bed,  as  I  light  my 
taper,  I  move  "  that  the  House  do  now  adjourn."  The  trades- 
men's bills  are  swelled  by  my  disease  into  the  budget,  and  the 
cheques  upon  my  banker  into  supplies.  Even  my  children  laugh 
and  wonder  at  the  answers  which  they  receive.  Yesterday 
one  brought  me  her  book  of  animals,  and  pointing  to  a  boa- 
constrictor,  asked  its  name,  and  I  told  her  it  was  an  O'Connell. 
I  am  told  that  I  mentioned  the  names  of  half  the  members  of 
the  Upper  and  Lower  House,  and  at  the  time  really  believed 
that  I  was  calling  the  beasts  by  their  right  names.  Such  are 
the  effects  of  my  unfortunate  disease. 

Abroad  I  feel  it  even  worse  than  at  home.  Society  is  un- 
hinged, and  every  one  is  afraid  to  offer  an  opinion.  If  I  dine 
out,  I  find  that  no  one  will  speak  first — he  knows  not  whether 
he  accosts  a  friend  or  foe,  or  whether  he  may  not  be  pledging 
his  bitter  enemy.  Every  man  looks  at  his  neighbour's  coun- 
tenance to  discover  if  he  is  Whig  or  Tory  :  they  appear  to  be 
examining  one  another  like  the  dogs  who  meet  in  the  street, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture  whether  the  mutual  scenting 
will  be  followed  up  by  a  growl  or  a  wag  of  the  tail ;  however, 
2 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

one  remark  will  soon  discover  the  political  sentiments  of  the 
whole  party.  Should  they  all  agree,  they  are  so  busy  in  abuse 
that  they  rail  at  their  adversaries  with  their  mouths  full — 
should  they  disagree,  they  dispute  so  vehemently  that  they 
forget  that  they  were  invited  to  dinner,  and  the  dishes  are 
removed  untasted,  and  the  duties  of  the  Amphytryon  become 
a  sinecure.  Go  to  an  evening  party  or  a  ball,  and  it  is  even 
worse,  for  young  ladies  talk  politics,  prefer  discussion  to  flir- 
tation, and  will  rather  win  a  partner  over  to  their  political 
opinions  than  by  their  personal  charms.  If  you,  as  a  Tory, 
happen  to  stand  up  in  a  cotillion  with  a  pretty  Whig,  she  taps 
you  with  her  fan  that  she  may  tap  your  politics :  if  you  agree, 
it  is  "  En  avant  deux  :  "  if  not,  a  "  chassez  croisee."  Everything 
goes  wrong — she  may  set  to  you  indeed,  but  hers  is  the  set  of 
defiance,  and  she  shakes  her  wig  against  your  Tory.  To  turn 
your  partner  is  impossible,  and  the  only  part  of  the  figure  which 
is  executed  con  amore  is  dos  a  dos.  The  dance  is  over,  and  the 
lady's  looks  at  once  tell  you  that  you  may  save  your  "  oaths," 
while  she  "takes  her  seat." 

I  have  tried  change  of  scene — posted  to  watering-places ; 
but  the  deep,  deep  sea  will  not  drown  politics.  Even  the 
ocean  in  its  roaring  and  commotion  reminded  me  of  a  political 
union. 

I  have  buried  myself  in  the  country,  but  it  has  been  all  in 
vain.  I  cannot  look  at  the  cattle  peacefully  grazing  without 
thinking  of  O'Connell's  tail ;  Stanley's  tail,  and  a  short-docked 
pony  reminded  me  of  the  boasted  little  tail  of  Colonel  Peel. 
The  farmyard,  with  its  noisy  occupants,  what  was  it  but  the 
reality  so  well  imitated  by  the  members  of  the  Lower  House, 
who  would  drown  argument  in  discord  ?  I  thought  I  was  in 
the  lobby  at  the  close  of  a  long  debate.  Every  tenth  field, 
every  tenth  furrow  (and  I  could  not  help  counting),  every  tenth 
animal,  and  every  tenth  step  reminded  me  of  the  Irish  tithes; 
and  when  I  saw  a  hawk  swoop  over  a  chicken  I  thought  of 
the  Appropriation  Bill — so  I  left  the  country. 

J  have  tried  everything — I  have  been  everywhere,  but  in 
vain.  In  the  country  there  was  no  relaxation — in  society  no 
pleasure,  at  home  no  relief.  England  was  disjointed,  never  to 
be  united  until  it  was  dismembered — and  there  was  no  repose. 
I  had  my  choice,  either  to  go  abroad  or  to  go  mad  ;  and, 
upon  mature  deliberation,  I  decided  upon  the  former,  as  the 
3 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

lesser  evil  of  the  two.  So  I  gave — I  sold — I  discharged — I 
paid — I  packed  up,  and  I  planned.  The  last  was  the  only 
portion  of  my  multifarious  duties  not  satisfactorily  arranged. 
I  looked  at  the  maps,  plied  my  compasses  that  I  might  com- 
pass my  wishes,  measured  distances  that  I  might  decide  upon 
my  measures — planned,  looked  over  the  maps — and  planned 
again 


CHAPTER  II 

W  ELL,  as  I  said  in  my  last  chapter,  I  planned — and  planned 
— but  I  might  as  well  conjugate  it,  as  many  others  assisted — 
it  was,  I  planned,  thou  plannedst,  he  planned,  we  planned,  ye 
planned,  and  they  planned — and  what  annoyed  me  was,  that 
I  could  not  help  considering  that  "  the  whole  house  was  in  a 
committee,"  and  without  being  able  "  to  report  progress."  At 
first  it  was  decided  upon  that  we  should  proceed  up  the  Rhine, 
and  not  leave  off  paddling  until  we  had  arrived  at  Manheim, 
at  which  town  I  fancied  that  I  should  at  least  be  out  of  political 
distance.  We  read  all  about  Manheim,  found  out  tint  it  was 
a  regular-built  town,  with  a  certain  number  of  inhabitants — 
with  promenades,  gardens,  and  a  fine  view  of  the  Rhine.  "  So 
you're  going  abroad — where  ?  "  "  Manheim,"  was  the  reply, 
and  all  the  world  knew  that  we  were  bound  to  Manheim  ;  and 
every  one  had  something  to  say,  or  something  that  they  had 
heard  said,  about  Manheim.  "  Very  nice  place — Duchess 
Dowager  Stephanie — very  cheap — gay  in  winter— masters 
excellent" — were  the  variety  of  changes  rung,  and  all  was 
settled  ;  but  at  last  one  unlucky  observation  raised  a  doubt — 
another  increased — a  third  confirmed  it.  "'A  very  dull  place — 
German  cookery  bad  for  children — steamboats  from  Rotterdam 
very  bad,  and  often  obliged  to  pass  two  nights  on  deck."  A 
very  influential  member  of  the  committee  took  alarm  about  the 
children  being  two  nights  on  deck,  and  it  was  at  last  decided 
that  to  go  up  to  Manheim  by  steamboat  at  £4>,  9s.  a  head,  and 
children  at  half-price,  was  not  to  be  thought  of. 

"  I  wonder  you  don't  go  to  Bruges,"  observed  a  committee 
man  ;  "  nice,  quiet  place — excellent  masters — everything  so 
cheap — I  once  bought  eighty  large  peaches  there  for  two 
francs." 

4 


DIARY   ON  THE   CONTINENT 

And  all  the  children  clapped  their  little  hands,  and  cried 
out  for  Bruges  and  cheap  peaches. 

It  was  further  submitted  that  it  was  convenient — you  might 
go  the  whole  of  the  way  by  water — and  Bruges  was  imme- 
diately under  consideration. 

"  If  you  go  to  Bruges,  you  will  find  it  very  dull/'  observed 
another  ;  "  but  you'll  meet  Mrs.  Trollope  there — now  Brussels 
is  very  little  farther,  and  is  a  delightful  place  ; "  and  Brussels 
was  also  referred  to  the  committee. 

"You  won't  like  Brussels — there  is  such  a  mixture,  and 
house-rent  is  dear.  Now,  I  should  recommend  Spa  for  the 
summer — it  is  a  most  beautiful  spot — and  excellent  company." 
And  Spa  was  added  to  the  list. 

Then  after  a  day  or  two  came  an  Anti-Teutonic,  who  railed 
against  Germany  and  Germans — German  towns,  German 
travelling,  and  German  French,  which  was  detestable — 
German  cookery,  which  was  nothing  but  grease.  "  You  may 
imagine,"  said  he,  "and  so  have  many  more,  that  Germany 
is  more  pleasant  and  less  expensive  than  France ;  but  they 
have  been  disappointed,  and  so  will  you  be.  Now,  for  a  quiet 
place,  I  should  recommend  St.  Omer — only  thirty  miles  from 
Calais— so  convenient — and  very  pretty." 

St.  Omer  — humph — very  quiet  and  retired — and  no  politics 
— and  St.  Omer  was  occasionally  canvassed. 

"St.  Omer  !  "  said  another  who  called  the  next  day,  "you'll 
die  of  ennui.  Go  to  Boulogne — it  is  delightful — you  may  be 
there  as  retired  or  as  gay  as  you  please." 

Boulogne  to  be  taken  into  consideration — many  inquiries 
made  and  all  very  satisfactory — good  sands  and  excellent  jack- 
asses for  the  children. 

"  My  dear  friend,  Boulogne  is  something  like  the  King's 
Bench — at  least  most  of  the  people  only  go  there  in  pre- 
ference. Everybody  will  suppose  that  you've  levanted.  Pray 
don't  go  to  Boulogne." 

"  Why  don't  you  go  by  Southampton  to  Havre — there  you'll 
have  quiet  and  amusement — beautiful  country  about  Honfleur 
— scenery  up  the  Seine  splendid ;  and  then  you  can  go  up  to 
Rouen  by  water,  if  you  intend  to  go  on  to  Paris." 

Havre  and  Honfleur  submitted  to  the  committee. 

But  then  came  Dieppe,  and  Brest,  and  the  environs  of  Paris, 
Versailles,  St.  Germain,  Passy,  and  other  recommendations,  in 
5 


OLLA   PODRIDA 


which  every  one  particular  place  was  proved  incontestably  to 
be  more  particularly  suited  to  us  than  any  other,  and  the 
committee  sat  for  three  weeks,  at  the  end  of  which,  upon 
examining  the  matured  opinions  of  the  last  seven  days,  I 
found  them  to  have  fluctuated  as  follows : — 

Monday  morning,  Manheim.     Evening,  Spa. 

Tuesday  morning>  Bruges.     Evening,  Brussels. 

Wednesday  morning,  St.  Omer.     Evening,  Boulogne. 

Thursday  morning,  Havre.     Evening,  Honfleur. 

Friday  morning^  Dieppe.     Evening,  Passy. 

Saturday  morning,  Versailles.     Evening,  St.  Germain. 

Sunday  morning,  Spa.     Evening,  Brussels. 

The  fact  was,  that  there  was  a  trifling  difference  of  opinion 
in  the  committee — the  great  object  appeared  to  be,  and  the 
great  difficulty  at  the  same  time,  to  find  a  place  which  would 
suit  all  parties,  that  is  to  say,  a  place  where  there  were  no 
politics,  plenty  of  gaiety,  and  cheap  peaches. 


CHAPTER  III 

_PADDLE,  paddld — splash,  splash — bump,  thump,  bump. 
What  a  leveller  is  sea-sickness — almost  as  great  a  Radical  as 
death.  All  grades,  all  respect,  all  consideration  are  lost. 
The  master  may  summon  John  to  his  assistance,  but  John  will 
see  his  master  hanged  before  he'll  go  to  him  ;  he  has  taken 
possession  of  his  master's  greatcoat,  and  he  intends  to  keep  it 
— he  don't  care  for  warning. 

The  nurses  no  longer  look  after  the  infant  or  the  children ; 
they  may  tumble  overboard — even  the  fond  yearnings  of  the 
mother  at  last  yield  to  the  overwhelming  sensation,  and  if  it 
were  not  for  the  mercenary  or  kind-hearted  assistance  of  those 
who  have  become  habituated  to  the  motion  of  the  vessel,  there 
is  no  saying  how  tragical  might  be  the  commencement  of 
many  a  party  of  pleasure  to  the  Continent. 

"  Oh  lauk,  Mary,  do  just  hold  this  child,"  says  the  upper 
nurse  to  her  assistant ;  "  I  do  feel  such  a  finking  in  my 
stomach." 

"Can't  indeed,  nurse;  I've  such  a  rising." 

Away  hurried  both  the  women  at  once  to  the  side  of  the 
6 


DIARY   ON  THE   CONTINENT 

vessel,  leaning  over  and  groaning  heavily.  As  for  the  children, 
they  would  soon  have  been  past  caring  for,  had  it  not  been 
for  my  protecting  arms. 

Decorum  and  modesty,  next  to  maternal  tenderness  the 
strongest  feelings  in  woman,  fall  before  the  dire  prostration 
of  this  malady.  A  young  lady  will  recline  unwittingly  in  the 
arms  of  a  perfect  stranger,  and  the  bride  of  three  months, 
deserted  by  her  husband,  will  offer  no  resistance  to  the  uncouth 
seaman,  who,  in  his  kindness,  would  loosen  the  laces  that 
confine  her  heaving  bosom. 

As  for  politeness,  even  the  ancien  regime  of  the  noblesse  of 
France  put  it  in  their  pockets  as  if  there  were  a  general  chaos 
— self  is  the  only  feeling  ;  not  but  that  I  have  seen  occasional 
traits  of  good-will  towards  others.  I  once  witnessed  a  young 
lady  smelling  at  a  bottle  of  eau-de-Cologne  as  if  her  existence 
depended  upon  it,  who  handed  it  over  to  another  whose  state 
was  even  more  pitiable,  and  I  was  reminded  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  and  the  cup  of  water,  as  he  lay  wounded  on  the  field 
of  battle,  "Thy  necessity  is  greater  than  mine."  And  if  I 
might  have  judged  from  her  trembling  lips  and  pallid  counte- 
nance, it  was  almost  an  equal  act  of  heroism.  Paddle,  paddle, 
splash,  splash,  bump,  thump,  bump — one  would  really  imagine 
that  the  passengers  were  so  many  pumps,  all  worked  at  once 
with  the  vessel  by  the  same  hundred  horse-power,  for  there 
were  an  hundred  of  them  about  me,  each  as  sick  as  a  horse. 
"  Sic  omnes,"  thought  I. 

I  have  long  passed  the  ordeal,  and  even  steam,  and  smoke, 
and  washing-basins,  and  all  the  various  discordant  and  revolt- 
ing noises  from  those  who  suffer,  have  no  effect  upon  my 
nervous  system — still  was  I  doomed  to  torment,  and  was  very 
sick  indeed.  For  some  time  I  had  been  watched  by  the  evil 
eyes  of  one  whom  the  Yankees  would  designate  as  almighty 
ligly.  He  was  a  thin,  spare  man,  whose  accost  I  could  well 
have  spared,  for  he  had  the  look  of  a  demon,  and,  as  I  soon 
found,  was  possessed  with  the  demon  of  politics.  Imagine  what 
I  must  have  suffered  when  I  found  out  that  he  was  a  button- 
holder  to  boot.  Observing  that  I  was  the  only  one  who  was 
in  a  state  to  listen,  he  seized  upon  me  as  his  victim.  I,  who 
had  fled  from  politics  with  as  much  horror  as  others  have  done 
from  the  cholera — I,  who  had  encountered  all  the  miseries  of 
gteam  navigation,  and  all  the  str-nm  and  effluvia  of  close  cabins, 

I 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

to  find  myself  condemned  with  others  "  alike  to  groan  " — what 
with  King  Leopold,  and  William  of  Nassau,  and  the  Belgian 
share  of  the  debt,  and  the  French  and  Antwerp,  and  his 
pertinacious  holding  of  my  button.  "Shall  I  knock  him 
down,"  thought  I;  "he  insists  upon  laying  his  hands  upon 
me,  why  should  I  not  lay  my  hands  upon  him  ?  "  But  on 
second  consideration,  that  would  not  have  been  polite  ;  so  I 
made  other  attempts  to  get  rid  of  him,  but  in  vain  ;  I  turned 
the  subject  to  far  countries — the  rascal  had  been  everywhere  ; 
at  one  moment  he  would  be  at  Vienna,  and  discuss  the 
German  confederation — at  another  in  South  America,  can- 
vassing the  merits  of  Bolivar  and  St.  Martin.  There  was  no 
stopping  him ;  his  tongue  was  like  the  paddle  of  a  steam- 
boat, and  almost  threw  as  much  spray  in  my  face.  At  last 
I  threw  off  my  coat,  which  he  continued  to  hold  in  his  hand 
by  the  third  button,  and  threw  myself  into  one  of  the  cribs 
appropriated  to  passengers,  wishing  him  a  good  night.  He 
put  my  coat  down  in  the  crib  beneath,  and  as  he  could  no 
longer  hold  the  button,  he  laid  hold  of  the  side  of  the  crib, 
and  continued  his  incessant  clack.  At  last  I  turned  my  back 
to  him,  and  made  no  answer,  upon  which  he  made  a  retreat, 
and  when  I  awoke  the  next  morning,  I  found  that  he  was  too 
ill  to  spout  politics,  although,  as  he  progressed,  he  spouted 
what  was  quite  as  bad. 

Par  parenthtse,  he  was  a  great  liar,  and  as  he  drew  a  long 
bow  when  he  was  able  to  talk,  so  did  he  prove  a  long  shot 
when  he  was  sea-sick.  Confound  the  fellow,  I  think  I  see  him 
now — there  he  stood,  a  tall,  gaunt  misery,  about  the  height 
of  a  workhouse  pump,  and  the  basin  was  on  the  floor  of  the 
cabin,  nearly  three  feet  from  his  two  feet ;  without  conde- 
scending to  stoop,  or  to  sit  down,  or  to  lift  up  the  basin,  so  as 
to  lessen  the  distance,  he  poured  forth  a  parabola,  "quod 
mine  describere  "  had  just  as  well  be  omitted.  I  shall,  therefore, 
dismiss  this  persecuting  demon,  by  stating  that  he  called  him- 
self a  baron,  the  truth  of  which  I  doubted  much  ;  that  he  was 
employed  by  crowned  heads,  which  I  doubted  still  more.  On 
one  point,  however,  I  had  little  doubt,  although  he  did  not 
enter  upon  the  subject  (and  his  tongue  to  a  great  degree  con- 
firmed it),  that  he  was  a  chevalier  d'industrie. 

"I  am  rid  of  him,  thank  God,"  exclaimed  I,  as  I  went  on 
deck  to  breathe  a  little  fresh  air,  having  lighted  my  cigar  in. 


DIARY   ON   THE  CONTINENT 

the  steward's  berth  as  I  ascended.  The  first  objects  which 
attracted  my  attention  \vere  a  young  gentleman  and  lady,  the 
former  standing  by  the  latter,  who  was  sitting  in  a  pensive 
position,  with  her  elbow  leaning  on  the  gunnel.  She  was  in 
deep  mourning  and  closely  veiled. 

"  And  how  does  the  beautiful  Maria  find  herself  this  morn- 
ing ? "  said  the  young  gentleman,  leaning  over  her  with  his 
hand  on  the  rail  to  support  himself. 

The  beautiful  Maria !  How  was  it  possible  not  to  be  at- 
tracted by  such  a  distinguishing  appellation  ?  The  beautiful 
Maria !  I  thought  of  Sterne's  Maria,  and  the  little  dog  with 
a  string,  and  I  trimmed  my  ear  like  a  windsail  in  the  tropics 
to  catch  the  soft  responding,  and  most  assuredly,  to  my  ex- 
pectant imagination,  melodious  vibration  to  the  air  which 
would  succeed. 

At  last  there  was  a  reply.  «  Oh  !  tol,  hi !  "  And  that  in 
anything  but  a  melodious  voice.  "  Oh  !  tol,  lol !  "  What  a 
bathos  !  The  beautiful  Maria,  whom  in  my  imagination  I  had 
clothed  with  all  the  attributes  of  sentiment  and  delicacy, 
whom  I  had  conjured  up  as  a  beau-ideal  of  perfection,  replies 
in  a  hoarse  voice  with,  "Oh  !  tol,  lol!"  Down  she  went.,  like 
the  English  funds  in  a  panic — down  she  went  to  the  zero  of 
a  Doll  Tearsheet,  and  down  I  went  again  into  the  cabin. 
Surely  this  is'  a  world  of  disappointment. 

Perhaps  I  was  wrong— she  might  have  been  very  beautiful, 
with  the  voice  of  a  peacock;  she  might  also  have  the  plumage 
- — but  no,  that  is  impossible — she  must,  from  her  sex,  have 
been  a  peahen.  At  all  events,  if  not  very  beautiful,  she  was 
very  sick.  I  left  the  beautiful  Maria  screeching  over  the 
gunnel.  If  the  young  gentleman  were  to  repeat  the  same 
question  now,  thought  I,  the  beautiful  Maria  will  hardly 
answer,  "  Oh  !  tol,  lol !  " 

It  was  very  cold  on  deck,  blowing  fresh  from  the  east.  I 
never  heard  any  one  give  a  satisfactory  reason  why  a  west 
wind  should  be  warm,  and  an  east  wind  cold  in  latitude  50°  N. 
It  is  not  so  in  the  tropics  when  the  east  wind  follows  the  rare- 
faction occasioned  by  the  sun.  Yet,  does  not  Byron  say, 

"  Tis  the  land  of  the  east,  'tis  the  clime  of  the  sun  "  ? 

Certainly  our  east  winds  are  not  at  all  poetical. 

"  Very  cold,  sir,"  said  I,  addressing  the  round-faced  gentle- 
9 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

man  in  a  white  greatcoat,  who  rested  his  chin  and  his  two 
hands  upon  a  thick  cane.  "  You  are'  fortunate  in  not  being 
aea-sick." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  I  am  not  fortunate.  I  am  worse  than 
sea-sick,  for  I  want  to  be  sea-sick  and  I  can't.  I  do  believe 
that  everything  is  changed  nowadays,  since  that  confounded 
Reform  Bill ! " 

"  Politics  again,"  thought  I ;  "  what  the  devil  has  sea-sick- 
rtess  to  do  with  the  Reform  Bill  ?  Mercy  on  me,  when  shall 
I  be  at  peace  ?  "  "  There  certainly  has  been  some  change," 
observed  I. 

"  Change,  sir  !  yes,  everything  changed.  England  of  1 835 
is  no  more  like  merry  England  of  olden  time  than  I  am  like 
Louis  the  Fourteenth — ruined,  sir — every  class  suffering,  sir — 
badly  ruled,  sir." 

"Things  are  hiuch  cheaper." 

"  Much  cheaper !  Yes,  sir  ;  but  what's  the  good  of  tilings 
being  cheap  when  nobody  has  any  money  to  purchase  with  ? 
They  might  just  as  well  be  dear.  It's  a  melancholy  discovery, 
sir,  this  steam." 

"  Melancholy  just  now  to  those  who  are  on  board,  and 
suffering,  I  grant." 

"  Pooh,  nonsense ;  melancholy  to  those  on  shore,  sir ;  the 
engines  work  while  man  looks  on  and  starves.  Country  ruined, 
sir — people  miserable  —  thrown  out  of  employment,  while 
foreigners  reap  the  benefit !  We  sell  them  our  manufactures 
at  a  cheaper  rate ;  we  clothe  them  well,  sir,  at  the  expense  of 
our  own  suffering  population.  But  is  this  all,  sir?  Oh  no  !" 

And  here  the  gentleman  dropped  his  chin  again  upon  his 
hands,  and  looked  very  woeful  indeed.  After  a  few  seconds, 
he  resumed. 

"  We  are  dismembered,  sir — ruined  by  faction.  Society  is 
disintegrated  by  political  animosities ;  thousands  have  re- 
treated from  the  scene  of  violence  and  excitement,  to  find 
peace  and  repose  in  a  foreign  land." 

I  nodded  an  assent. 

"Ay,  sir,  and  thousands  will  follow,  withdrawing  from  the 
country  its  resources,  circulating  millions  which  enrich  other 
nations,  and  avoiding  their  own  share  of  the  national  burdens, 
which  fall  still  heavier  upon  those  who  remain.  But  is  that 
all,  sir  ?  Oh  tto  !  " 

10 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

This  second  "  Oh  no  ! "  was  pronounced  in  a  more  lugu- 
brious note  :  he  shook  his  head,  and  after  a  pause  he  recom- 
menced. "  England  is  no  longer  priest-ridden,  sir ;  but  she  is 
worse,  she  is  /ow-ridden.  Litigation  and  law  expenses  have, 
like  locusts,  devoured  up  the  produce  of  industry.  No  man  is 
safe  without  a  lawyer  at  his  elbow,  making  over  to  him  a  part 
of  his  annual  income  to  secure  the  remainder.  And  then 
there's  Brougham.  But,  sir,  is  that  all?  Oh  no!" 

Another  pause,  and  he  continued.  "  I  never  grumble — I 
hate  grumblers  ;  I  never  talk  of  politics — I  hate  politics;  but, 
sir,  is  it  not  the  case,  that  madmen  and  fools  have  united  to 
ruin  the  country  ?  Is  it  not  true,  sir,  that  unable  to  rise  by 
their  talents,  and  urged  by  a  wicked  ambition,  they  have 
summoned  main  force  and  the  power  of  numbers  to  their 
assistance,  and  have  raised  a  spirit  which  they  cannot  put 
down  again  ?  Is  it  not  true,  sir,  that  treason  walks  bare- 
faced through  the  land,  pointing  to  general  destruction — to  a 
violation  of  all  rights,  to  anarchy,  confusion,  and  the  shedding 
of  blood  ?  Is  not  reason  borne  down  by  faction,  sir  ?  But, 
sir,  is  that  all  ?  Oh  no!" 

The  last  "Oh  no !"  was  more  melancholy  than  the  preced- 
ing, but  I  considered  that  my  companion  must  have  nearly 
exhausted  his  budget  of  miseries,  and  was  curious  to  ascertain 
what  would  come  next. 

(t  What,  is  there  more,  sir  ?  "  inquired  I  innocently. 

"  More,  sir  ?  Yes,  sir,  plenty  more.  I  ask  you  whether  even 
the  seasons  have  not  changed  in  our  unhappy  country ;  have  we 
not  summer  with  unusual,  unexampled  heat,  and  winters  with- 
out cold  ;  when  shall  we  ever  see  the  mercury  down  below 
sixty  degrees  again  ?  Never,  sir.  What  is  summer  but  a  season 
of  alarm  and  dread  ?  Does  not  the  cholera  come  in  as  regu- 
larly as  green  peas — terrifying  us  to  death,  whether  we  die  of 
it  or  not  ?  Of  what  advantage  are  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  so 
bountifully  bestowed — have  they  not  all  been  converted  into 
poisons?  Who  dares  to  drink  a  light  summer  wine  now?  Are 
not  all  vegetables  abjured,  peaches  thrown  to  the  pigs,  and 
strawberries  ventured  upon  only  by  little  boys  who  sweep  the 
streets,  with  the  broom  in  one  hand  and  the  pottle  in  the 
other  ?  Are  not  melons  rank  poison,  and  cucumbers  sudden 
death  ?  And  in  the  winter,  sir,  are  we  better  off?  Instead  of 
the  wholesome  frost  of  olden  days,  purifying  the  air  and  the 
11 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

soil,  and  bracing  up  our  nerves,  what  have  we  but  the  in- 
fluenza, which  lasts  us  for  four  months,  and  the  spasmodic 
cough,  which  fills  up  the  remainder  of  the  year  ?  I  am  no 
grumbler,  sir  ;  I  hate  and  abhor  anything  like  complaining,  but 
this  I  will  say,  that  the  world  has  been  turned  upside  down — 
that  everything  has  gone  wrong — that  peace  has  come  to  us 
unattended  by  plenty — that  everybody  is  miserable  ;  and  that 
vaccination  and  steam,  which  had  been  lauded  as  blessings, 
have  proved  the  greatest  of  all  possible  curses,  and  that  there 
is  no  chance  ot  a  return  to  our  former  prosperity  unless  we 
can  set  fire  to  our  coal-mines,  and  re-introduce  the  small-pox. 
But,  sir,  the  will  of  Heaven  be  done.  I  shall  say  no  more  ;  I 
don't  wish  to  make  other  people  unhappy  ;  but  pray  don't 
think,  sir,  I've  told  you  all.  Oh  no!" 

At  this  last  "  Oh  no ! "  my  companion  laid  his  face  down 
upon  his  knuckles,  and  was  silent.  I  once  more  sought  the 
deck,  and  preferred  to  encounter  the  east  wind.  "  Blow, 
blow,  thou  wintry  wind,  thou  art  not  so  unkind,"  soliloquised 
I,  as  I  looked  over  the  bows,  and  perceived  that  we  were  close 
to  the  pile  entrance  ot  the  harbour  of  Ostend.  Ten  minutes 
afterwards  there  was  a  cessation  of  paddle,  paddle,  thump, 
thump,  the  stern-fast  was  thrown  on  the  quay,  there  was  a  rush 
on  board  of  commissionaires,  with  their  reiterated  cries,  ac- 
companied with  cards  thrust  into  our  hands,  "  Hotel  des 
Bains,  monsieur ;  "  "  Hotel  Waterloo,  monsieur ; "  "  Hotel 
Bellevue  ;  "  "  Hotel  Bedford,  monsieur ; "  "  Hotel  d'Angle- 
terre,"  ad  in/initum — and  then  there  was  the  pouring  out  of  the 
Noah's  Ark,  with  their  countenances  wearing  a  most  para- 
doxical appearance,  for  they  evidently  showed  that  they 
had  had  quite  enough  of  water,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
that  they  required  a  great  deal  more.  I  looked  at  my 
children,  as  they  were  hoisted  up  from  the  ladies'  cabin, 
one  after  another,  and  upon  examination  I  decided  that, 
with  their  smudged  faces,  the  Hotel  des  Bains  would  be  the 
most  appropriate  to  their  condition ;  so  there  we  went. 


12 


He  swept  the  natives  oft"  the  raft.' 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 


CHAPTER  IV 

OSTEND,  April  18,  1835. 

J.  WAS  confoundedly  taken  in  by  a  rascal  of  a  commission- 
aire, and  aware  how  the  feelings  of  travellers  are  affected 
by  the  weather  or  the  treatment  they  receive  at  any  place 
they  may  pass  through,  I  shall  display  the  heroism  of  saying 
nothing  about  the  place,  except  that  I  believe  Ostend  to  be 
the  most  rascally  hole  in  the  world,  and  the  sooner  the 
traveller  is  out  of  it  so  much  the  better  will  it  be  for  his 
purse  and  for  his  temper. 

April  19. 

It  has  been  assumed  as  an  axiom  that  every  one  in  this 
tvorld  is  fond  of  power.  During  our  passage  in  the  traek- 
schuyt  I  had  an  evidence  to  the  contrary,  for  as  we  glided 
noiselessly  and  almost  imperceptibly  along,  a  lady  told  me 
that  she  infinitely  preferred  the  three-horse  power  of  the 
schuyt  to  the  hundred-horse  power  of  the  steam-packet. 
We  arrived  at  Bruges,  escaping  all  the  horrors  and  difficulties 
of  steam  navigation. 

House-rent  at  Bruges  is  cheap,  because  one-half  of  the 
houses  are  empty — at  least,  that  was  the  cause  assigned  to  me, 
although  I  will  not  vouch  for  its  being  the  true  one.  The 
reader  may  remember  that  this  was  the  site  of  cheap  peaches, 
but  none  met  our  sight,  the  trees  not  being  yet  in  blossom. 
I  ought  to  observe,  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  Foreign  Bible 
Society,  that  at  the  hotel  at  Bruges  I  saw  a  book  of  their  ex- 
portation lying  on  the  chimney-piece  in  excellent  preservation. 

April  21. 

As  to  what  passed  on  our  canal  voyage  to  Ghent,  I  can  only 
say  that  everything  passed  us — for  the  roads  were  very  heavy, 
the  horses  very  lazy,  and  the  boys  still  lazier  ;  they  rode  their 
horses  listlessly,  sitting  on  them  sideways,  as  I  have  seen  lads 
in  the  country  swinging  on  a  gate — whereby  the  gait  of  the 
track-schuyt  could  not  be  styled  a  swinging  pace.  We  did 
arrive  at  last,  and  thus  ended  our  water  carriage  At  Ghent 
we  went  to  the  Hotel  Royal,  from  out  of  the  windows  of 
13 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

which  I  had  a  fine  view  of  the  belfry,  surmounted  by  the 
Brazen  Dragon  brought  from  Constantinople  ;  and  as  I  con- 
jured up  times  past,  and  I  thought  how  the  belfry  was  built 
and  how  the  dragon  got  there,  I  found  myself  at  last  wander- 
ing In  the  Apocrypha  of  "  Bel  and  the  Dragon." 

We  went  to  see  the  picture  by  Van  Eck,  in  the  cathedral 
of  St.  Bovin.  The  reader  will  probably  wish  to  know  who 
was  St.  Bovin — so  did  I — and  I  asked  the  question  of  the 
sacristan :  the  reader  shall  have  the  benefit  of  the  answer, 
"  St.  Bovin,  monsieur,  il  etait  un  saint." 

That  picture  of  Van  Eck's  is  worth  a  van  full  of  most  of 
the  pictures  we  see ;  it  was  Van  Eck  who  invented,  and  was, 
indeed,  the  father  of  painting  in  oil.  It  is  a  wonderful 
production. 

Mrs.  Trollope  says  that  people  run  through  Belgium  as  if  it 
were  a  mere  railroad  to  other  countries.  That  is  very  true — 
we  did  the  same — for  who  would  stop  at  Ostend  to  be 
swindled,  or  at  Bruges  to  look  at  empty  houses,  or  at  Ghent, 
•vhich  is  nothing  but  a  Flanders  Birmingham,  when  Brussels 
and  King  Leopold,  and  the  anticipation  of  something  more 
agreeable,  were  only  thirty  miles  off.  Not  one  day  was  our 
departure  postponed  ;  with  post-horses  and  postillions  we 
posted  post  haste  to  Brussels. 


CHAPTER  V 

April  22. 

THE  Queen  of  Belgium  "a  fait  un  enfant"  On  the 
Continent  it  is  always  the  wife  who  is  considered  as  the 
faiseuxe  ;  the  husband  is  supposed,  and  very  often  with  justice, 
to  have  had  nothing  to  do  in  the  matter — it  certainly  does 
appear  to  be  optional  on  the  part  of  the  ladies,  for  they  limit 
their  family  to  their  exact  wishes  or  means  of  support.  How 
different  is  it  in  England,  where  children  will  be  born  whether 
it  is  convenient  or  not !  O  Miss  Martineau  !  you  may  talk 
about  the  "preventive  check,"  but  where  is  it?  In  England 
it  Would  be  as  valuable  as  the  philosopher's  stone. 

I  tlii iik  that  the  good  people  of  Paris  would  do  well,  as  they 
appear  just  now  to  have  left  religion  in  abeyance,  to  take  up 
the  manners  and  the  customs  of  the  empire  of  the  Nahirs,  a 
14 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

Mahratta  nation,  which  I  once  read  about.  In  that  country, 
as  in  heaven,  there  is  no  marrying,  nor  giving  in  marriage. 
All  are  free,  and  all  inheritance  is  through  the  children  of  the 
sister ;  for  although  it  is  impossible  to  know  who  may  be  the 
father  of  any  of  the  children,  they  are  very  certain  that  the 
sister's  children  must  have  the  blood  on  the  maternal  side. 
What  a  good  arrangement  this  would  be  for  the  Parisians — 
how  many  pec/ies  mortels  would  they  get  rid  of — such  as  adul- 
tery, fornication,  &c. — by  passing  one  simple  ]aw  of  the  land. 
By-the-bye,  what  an  admirable  idea  for  reforming  a  nation — r 
they  say  that  laws,  nowadays,  are  made  to  prevent  crime  : 
but  if  laws  were  enacted  by  which  crime  should  no  longer  be 
considered  as  crime,  what  a  deal  of  trouble  might  be  saved. 

The  theatre  is  closed  owing  to  the  want  of  funds  ;  the  want 
of  funds  is  owing  to  the  want  of  honesty  on  the  part  of  the 
manager,  he  having  run  away  with  the  strong-box,  which  was 
decidedly  the  very  best  box  in  the  theatre. 

April  26. 

I  went  to  see  a  species  of  Franconi,  or  Astley's :  there  is 
little  variety  in  these  performances,  as  there  are  only  a  certain 
quantity  of  feats  which  can  be  performed  either  by  the  horses 
or  the  riders  ;  nevertheless  we  had  some  novelty.  We  had  the 
very  best  feminh  e  rider  I  ever  saw  ;  she  was  a  perfect  female 
Centaur,  looking  part  and  parcel  of  the  animal  upon  which  she 
stood  ;  and  then  we  had  a  regularly  Dutch-built  lady,  who 
amused  us  with  a  tumble  off  her  horse,  coming  down  on  the 
loose  sawdust,  in  a  sitting  posture,  and  making  a  hole  in  it  as 
large  as  if  a  covey  of  partridges  had  been  basking  in  it  for  the 
whole  day.  An  American  black  (there  always  is  a  black 
fellow  in  these  companies,  for,  as  Cooper  says,  they  learn  to 
ride  well  in  America  by  stealing  their  masters'  horses)  rode 
furiously  well  and  sprained  his  ankle.  The  attempt  of  a  man  in 
extreme  pain  to  smile  is  very  horrible — yet  he  did  grin  as  he 
bowed  and  limped  away.  After  that  we  had  a  performer  who 
had  little  chance  of  spraining  her  ankle  ;  it  was  a  Miss  Betsey, 
a  female  of  good  proportions,  who  was,  however,  not  a  little 
sulky  that  evening,  and  very  often  refused  to  perform  her 
task,  and  as  for  forcing  the  combined  will  of  a  female  and  an 
elephant  to  boot,  there  was  no  man  rash  enough  to  attempt  it, 
go  she  did  as  little  as  she  pleased,  and  it  pleased  her  to  do  very 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

little.    One  feat,  however,  was  novel :  she  took  a  musket  in  her 
mouth,  and  fired  it  off  with  her  trunk. 

When  I  was  in  India  I  was  very  partial  to  these  animals ; 
there  was  a  most  splendid  elephant  which  had  been  captured 
by  the  expedition  sent  to  Martaban  ;  he  stood  four  or  five  feet 
higher  than  elephants  usually  do,  and  was  a  great  favourite  of 
his  master,  the  rajah.     When  this  animal  was  captured,  there 
was  great  difficulty  in  getting  him  on  board  of  the  transport. 
A  raft  was  made,  and  he  was  very  unwillingly  persuaded  to 
trust  his  huge  carcass  upon  it ;  he  was  then  towed  off  with 
about  thirty  of  the  natives  on  the  raft,  attending  him  ;  the 
Jargest  purchases  and  blocks  were  procured  to  hoist  him  in, 
the  mainyards  doubly  secured,  and  the  fall  brought  to  the 
capstern.    The  elephant  had  been  properly  slung,  the  capstern 
was  manned,  and  his  huge  bulk  was  lifted  in  the  air,  but  he 
had  not  risen  a  foot  before  the  ropes  gave  way,  and  down  he 
came  again  on  the  raft  with  a  heavy  surge,  a  novelty  which  he 
did  not  appear  to  approve  of.     A  new  fall  was  rove,  and  they 
again  manned  the  capstern ;  this  time  the  tackle  held,  and  up 
went  the  gentleman  in  the  air ;  but  he  had  not  forgotten  the 
previous  accident,  and,  upon  what  ground  it  is  impossible  to 
say,  he  ascribed  his  treatment  to  the  natives  who  were  assist- 
ing him  on  the  raft.     As  he  slowly  mounted  in  the  air,  he 
looked  about  him  very  wroth,  his  eyes  and  his  trunk  being  the 
only  portions  of  his  frame  at  liberty.     These  he  turned  about 
in  every  direction  as  he  ascended — at  last,  as  he  passed  by  the 
main  channels,  he  perceived  the  half  of  a  maintop-sail  yard, 
which  had  been  carried  away  in  the  slings,  lying  on  the  goose- 
necks ;  it  was  a  weapon  that  suited  him  admirably  ;  he  seized 
hold  of  it,  and  whirling  it  once  round  with  his  trunk,  directed 
the  piece  of  wood  with  such  good  aim  that  he  swept  about 
twenty  of  the  natives  off  the  raft,  to  take  their  chance  with  a 
strong  tide  and  plenty  of  alligators.     It  was  the  self-possession 
of  the  animal  which  I  admired  so  much— swinging  in  the  air 
in  so  unusual  a  position  for  an  elephant,  he  was  as  collected  as 
if  he  had  been  roaming  in  his  own  wild  forests.      He  arrived 
and  was  disembarked  at  Rangoon,  and  it  was  an  amusement  to 
me,  whenever  I  could  find  time,  to  watch  this  animal,  and  two 
others  much  smaller  in  size  who  were  with  him  ;  but  he  was 
my  particular  pet.     Perhaps  the  reader  will  like  to  have  the 
diary  of  an  elephant  when  not  on  active  service.     At  what 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 

time  animals  get  up  who  never  lie  down  without  being 
ordered,  it  is  not  very  easy  to  say.  The  elephants  are  stalled 
at  the  foot  of  some  large  tree,  which  shelters  them  during  the 
day  from  the  extreme  heat  of  the  sun ;  they  stand  under  this 
tree,  to  which  they  are  chained  by  their  hind  legs.  Early  in 
the  morning  the  keeper  makes  his  appearance  from  his  hovel, 
and  throws  the  respective  keys  down  to  the  elephants,  who 
immediately  unlock  the  padlocks  of  the  chains,  cast  them- 
selves loose,  and  in  the  politest  manner  return  the  keys  to 
the  keeper ;  they  then  march  off  with  him  to  the  nearest 
forest,  and  on  their  arrival  commence  breaking  down  the 
branches  of  the  trees,  selecting  those  which  are  most  agreeable 
to  their  palates,  and  arranging  them  in  two  enormous  faggots. 
When  they  have  collected  as  much  as  they  think  they  require, 
they  make  withies  and  bind  up  their  two  faggots,  and  then 
twist  another  to  connect  the  two,  so  as  to  hang  them  over 
their  backs  down  on  each  side,  and  having  thus  made  their 
provision,  they  return  home  ;  the  keeper  may  or  may  not  be 
present  during  this  performance.  All  depends  upon  whether 
the  elephants  are  well  trained,  and  have  been  long  in  servitude. 
Upon  their  return,  the  elephants  pass  the  chains  again  round 
their  legs,  lock  the  padlock,  and  present  the  key  as  before ; 
they  then  amuse  themselves  with  their  repast,  eating  all  the 
leaves  and  tender  shoots,  and  rejecting  the  others.  Now, 
when  an  elephant  has  had  enough  to  eat,  he  generally  selects 
a  long  bough,  and  pulling  off  all  the  lateral  branches,  leaves  a 
bush  at  the  end  forming  a  sort  of  whisk,  to  keep  off  the  flies 
and  mosquitoes  ;  for  although  the  hide  of  the  elephant  is  very 
thick,  still  it  is  broken  into  crannies  and  cracks,  into  which  the 
vermin  insert  themselves.  Sometimes  they  have  the  follow- 
ing ingenious  method  of  defending  themselves  against  these 
tormentors — they  put  the  end  of  their  trunks  down  in  the 
dust,  draw  up  as  large  a  quantity  as  they  can,  and  turning 
their  trunks  over  their  heads,  pour  it  out  over  their  skin, 
powdering  and  filling  up  the  interstices,  after  which  they 
take  the  long  branch  I  have  before  mentioned,  and  amuse 
themselves,  by  flapping  it  right  and  left,  and  in  all  directions 
about  their  bodies,  wherever  the  insects  may  settle. 

And  now  for  an  instance  of  self-denial,  which  I  have  often 
witnessed  on  the  part  of  my  friend  the  large  elephant.     I 
have  observed  him  very  busy  ,'flar  ping  right,  and  flapping  left, 
17  B 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

evidently  much  annoyed  by  the  persecution  of  the  mosquitoes. 
By-the-bye,  no  one  can  have  an  idea  how  hard  the  tiger-mos- 
quito can  bite.  I  will,  however,  give  an  instance  of  it,  for  the 
truth  of  which  I  cannot  positively  vouch  ;  but  I  remember 
that  once,  when  it  rained  torrents,  and  we  were  on  a  boating 
expedition,  a  marine  who,  to  keep  his  charge  dry,  had  his  fore- 
finger inserted  in  the  barrel  of  his  musket,  pulled  it  out  in  a 
great  hurry,  exclaiming  to  his  comrade,  "  May  I  be  shot,  Bill, 
if  one  of  them  beggars  ha'n't  bit  me  right  through  the  barrel 
of  my  musket."  This  par  parenthese,  and  now  to  proceed.  As 
I  said  before,  the  elephant  showed,  by  constant  flagellation  of 
his  person,  that  he  was  much  annoyed  by  his  persecutors,  and 
just  at  that  time  the  keeper  brought  a  little  naked  black  thing, 
as  round  as  a  ball,  which  in  India,  I  believe,  they  call  a  child, 
laid  it  down  before  the  animal  with  two  words  in  Hindostanee 
— "  Watch  ill"  and  then  walked  away  into  the  town.  The 
elephant  immediately  broke  off  the  larger  part  of  the  bough, 
so  as  to  make  a  smaller  and  more  convenient  whisk, and  directed 
his  whole  attention  to  the  child,  gently  fanning  the  little  lump 
of  Indian  ink,  and  driving  away  every  mosquito  which  came 
near  it ;  this  he  continued  for  upwards  of  two  hours,  regardless 
of  himself,  until  the  keeper  returned.  It  was  really  a  beauti- 
ful sight,  and  causing  much  reflection.  Here  was  a  monster, 
whose  bulk  exceeded  that  of  the  infant  by  at  least  two  thou- 
sand times,  acknowledging  that  the  image  of  his  Maker,  even 
in  its  lowest  degree  of  perfection,  was  divine  ;  silently  proving 
the  truth  of  the  sacred  announcement,  that  God  had  "  given 
to  man  dominion  over  the  beasts  of  the  field."  And  here,  too, 
was  a  brute  animal  setting  an  example  of  devotion  and  self- 
denial,  which  but  few  Christians,  none,  indeed,  but  a  mother, 
could  have  practised.  Would  Powell  Buxton,  surrounded  by 
a  host  of  mosquitoes,  have  done  as  much  for  a  fellow-creature, 
white  or  black  ?  not  he ;  he  would  have  flapped  his  own 
thighs,  his  own  ears,  his  own  face,  and  his  own  everything, 
and  have  left  his  neighbours  to  take  care  of  themselves ;  nor 
would  I  blame  him. 

As  I  am  on  the  subject,  I  may  as  well  inform  my  readers 
how  and  in  which  way  the  elephant  and  I  parted  company, 
for  it  was  equally  characteristic  of  the  animal.  The  army  was 
ordered  to  march,  and  the  elephants  were  called  into  requisition 
to  carry  the  tents.  The  quartermaster-general,  the  man  with* 
18. 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

four  eyes,  as  the  natives  called  him,  because  he  wore  spectacles, 
superintended  the  loading  of  the  animals — tent  upon  tent  was 
heaped  upon  my  friend,  who  said  nothing,  till  at  last  he  found 
that  they  were  overdoing  the  thing,  and  then  he  roared  out  his 
complaints,  which  the  keeper  explained ;  but  there  was  still 
one  more  tent  to  be  carried,  and  therefore,  as  one  more  or  less 
could  make  no  difference,  it  was  ordered  to  be  put  upon  his 
back.  The  elephant  said  no  more,  but  he  turned  sulky — 
enough  was  as  good  as  a  feast  with  him,  and  he  considered 
this  treatment  as  no  joke.  Now,  it  so  happened  that  at  the 
time  the  main  street,  and  the  only  street  of  the  town,  which 
was  at  least  half  a  mile  long,  was  crowded  to  suffocation  with 
tattoos,  or  little  ponies,  and  small  oxen,  every  one  of  them 
loaded  with  a  couple  of  cases  of  claret,  or  brandy,  or  some- 
thing else,  slung  on  each  side  of  them,  attended  by  coolies, 
who,  with  their  hooting,  and  pushing,  and  beating,  and 
screaming,  created  a  very  bustling  and  lively  scene.  When 
the  last  tent  was  put  on  the  elephant  he  was  like  a  mountain 
with  canvas  on  each  side  of  him,  bulging  out  to  a  width  equal 
to  his  own  ;  there  was  just  room  for  him  to  pass  through  the 
two  rows  of  houses  on  each  side  of  the  street,  and  not  ten 
inches  to  spare;  he  was  ordered  by  the  keeper  to  go  on— he 
obeyed  the  order  certainly,  but  in  what  way — he  threw  his 
trunk  up  in  the  air,  screamed  a  loud  shriek  of  indignation, 
and  set  off  at  a  trot,  which  was  about  equal  in  speed  to  a 
horse's  gallop,  right  down  the  street,  mowing  down  before  him 
every  pony,  bullock,  and  coolie  that  barred  his  passage  :  the 
confusion  was  indescribable  ;  all  the  little  animals  were  with 
their  legs  in  the  air,  claret  and  brandy  poured  in  rivulets  down 
the  street,  coolies  screamed  as  they  threw  themselves  into  the 
doors  and  windows  ;  and  at  one  fell  swoop  the  angry  gentleman 
demolished  the  major  part  of  the  comforts  of  the  officers,  who 
were  little  aware  how  much  they  were  to  sacrifice  for  the 
sake  of  an  extra  tent.  With  my  eyes  I  followed  my  friend  in 
his  reckless  career,  until  he  was  enveloped  and  hid  from  my 
view  in  a  cloud  of  dust,  and  that  was  my  farewell  of  him.  I 
turned  round,  and  observed  close  to  me  the  quartermaster- 
general,  looking  with  all  his  four  eyes  at  the  effects  of  his  in- 
humanity. But  I  have  wandered  some  twenty  thousand  miles 
from  Brussels,  and  must  return. 

19 


OLLA   PODRIDA 


CHAPTER  VI 

.^  BRUSSELS,  May  6. 

JtilS  Belgian  Majesty,  the  Belgian  Ministers,  Belgian  Ambas- 
sadors, Belgian  authorities,  and  all  the  Belgian  nobility  and 
gentry,  all  the  English  who  reside  in  Br  jssels  for  economy  and 
quiet,  and  all  the  exiles  and  propaganda  who  reside  here 
to  kick  up  a  row,  have  all  left  Brussels  by  the  Porte  d'Anvers. 
And  all  the  Belgians  who  live  at  Brussels  have  shut  up  their 
shops,  and  gone  out  by  the  Porte  d'Anvers.  And  the  whole 
populace,  men,  women,  and  children,  have  gone  out  of  the 
Porte  d'Anvers.  And  all  the  infants  have  also  gone,  because 
the  mothers  could  not  leave  them  at  home.  And  the  generals, 
and  their  staffs,  and  the  officers,  and  all  the  troops,  and  all  the 
artillery,  have  also  left  Brussel.,,  and  gone  oat  at  the  Porte 
d'Anvers,  to  keep  the  said  populace  quiet  and  in  good  order. 
So  that  there  is  no  one  left  at  Brussels,  and  Brussels  must  for 
one  day  take  care  of  itself. 

And  now  you,  of  course,  wish  to  know  why  they  have  all 
left  Brussels,  and  further,  why  they  have  gone  through  the 
Porte  d'Anvers. 

Because  there  is  this  day  the  commemoration  of  the  inaugu- 
ration of  the  Chemin  de  Per,  which  has  just  been  completed 
from  Brussels  to  Malines,  and  which  is  on  this  day  to  be  opened, 
that  is  to  say,  that  three  steam-tugs,  whose  names  are  the 
Stcphenson,  the  Arrow,  and  the  Elephant,  are  to  drag  to 
Malines  and  back  again  in  the  presence  of  his  Majesty,  all  his 
Majesty's  ministers,  all  the  ambassadors  who  choose  to  go,  all 
the  heads  of  the  departments,  and  everybody  else  who  can 
produce  a  satisfactory  yellow  ticket,  which  will  warrant  their 
getting  into  one  of  the  thirty-three  omnibuses,  diligences,  or 
cars,  which  are  attached  to  the  said  three  steam-tugs,  the  Arrow, 
the  Stepkenson,  and  the  Elephant.  I  shall  go  and  see  it — 
I  will  not  remain  at  Brussels  by  myself,  the  "  last  man." 

May  6th. 

Tt  was  a  brilliant  affair,  and  went  off  well,  because  the  trains 
went  on  well.     We  were  tugged  through  twelve  miles  of  the 
fertile  pasture  in  the  universe,  the  whole  line  of  road  so 
20 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

crowded  with  spectators,  as  to  make  evident  the  extreme  popu- 
lousness  of  the  country.  For  the  first  mile  it  was  one  mass  of 
people — and  a  Belgian  crowd  has  a  very  agreeable  effect,  from 
the  prevailing  colours  being  blue  and  white,  which  are  very 
refreshing,  and  contrast  pleasantly  with  the  green  background. 
Every  man  had  his  blouse,  and  every  woman  her  cap  and  straw 
bonnet ;  but  if  the  Belgians  look  well  en  masse,  I  cannot  say 
that  they  do  so  in  detail :  the  men  we  do  not  expect  much 
from,  but  the  women  are  certainly  the  plainest  race  in  the 
whole  world — I  will  not  except  the  Africans.  In  some  of  our 
men-of-war  it  was  formerly  the  custom  to  have  an  old  knife, 
which  was  passed  from  one  to  the  other,  as  the  men  joined 
the  ship,  being  handed  to  the  ugliest  man  they  could  find  ;  he 
held  the  knife  until  another  came,  more  unfortunate  in  phy- 
siognomy than  himself,  when  it  was  immediately  made  over  to 
the  last,  who  was  obliged  in  his  turn  to  retain  it  until  he  could 
discover  some  one  even  more  unprepossessing.  Following  up 
this  principle  with  the  women  of  Belgium,  and  comparing  them 
with  other  European  states,  they  are  unequivocally  entitled  to 
hold  the  knife,  and  unless  they  improve  by  crossing  the  breed, 
I  am  afraid  they  will  have  it  in  their  possession  for  centuries. 
We  arrived  safe  at  Malines,  and  I  was  infinitely  amused  at 
the  variety  of  astonishment  in  the  five  hundred  thousand  faces 
which  we  passed.  In  one  rich  meadow  I  beheld  a  crowd  of 
Roman  Catholic  priests,  who  looked  at  the  trains  in  such  a 
manner  as  if  they  thought  that  they  were  "  heretical  and  damn- 
able," and  that  the  Chemin  de  Fcr  was  nothing  but  the  Che- 
min  d'Enfer.  At  Malines  we  all  got  out,  walked  to  a  stone 
pillar,  where  a  speech  was  made  to  the  sound  of  martial  music, 
and  we  all  got  in  again.  And  then  to  show  the  power  of  his 
engines,  Mr.  Stephenson  attached  all  the  cars,  omnibuses, 
and  diligences  together,  and  directed  the  Elephant  to  take  us 
back  without  assistance  from  the  other  two  engines.  So  the 
Elephant  took  us  all  in  tow,  and  away  we  went  at  a  very  fair 
pace.  It  must  have  been  a  very  beautiful  sight  to  those  who 
were  looking  on — the  whole  train  in  one  line,  covered  with 
red  cloth  and  garlands  of  roses  with  white  canopies  overhead, 
and  decorated  with  about  three  hundred  Belgian  flags,  of 
yellow,  red,  and  black.  However,  the  huge  animal  who 
dragged  this  weight  of  eighty  tons  became  thirsty  at  Ville 
Vorde,  and  cast  us  off — it  took  him  half-an-hour  to  drink — 
21 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

that  is  to  say,  to  take  in  water,  and  then  he  set  off  again,  and 
we  arrived  safely  at  Brussels,  much  to  the  delight  of  those 
who  were  in  the  cars  and  also  of  his  Majesty,  and  all  his 
ministers,  and  all  his  authorities,  and  all  the  mercantile  classes 
who  consider  that  the  millennium  is  come,  but  very  much  to 
the  disappointment  of  the  lower  classes,  who  have  formed  the 
idea  that  the  Chemin  de  Fcr  will  take  away  their  bread,  and 
who  therefore  longed  for  a  blow-up.  And  Mr.  Stephenson 
having  succeeded  in  bringing  back  in  safety  his  decorated 
cars,  has  been  de'core'  himself,  and  is  now  a  Chevalier  de  1'Ordre 
Leopold.  Would  not  the  Iron  order  of  the  Belgian  patriots 
have  been  more  appropriate  as  a  Chemin  de  Fcr  decoration  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  contemplate  any  steam-engine  without 
feeling  wonder  and  admiration  at  the  ingenuity  of  man  ;  but 
this  feeling  is  raised  to  a  degree  of  awe  when  you  look  at  a 
locomotive-engine — there  is  such  enormous  power  compressed 
into  so  small  a  space — I  never  can  divest  myself  of  the  idea 
that  it  is  possessed  of  vitality — that  it  is  a  living  as  well  as  a 
moving  being — and  that  idea,  joined  with  its  immense  power, 
conjures  up  in  my  mind  that  it  is  some  spitting,  fizzing, 
terrific  demon,  who,  if  he  could  escape  control,  would  be  ready 
and  happy  to  drag  us  by  thousands  to  destruction. 

And  will  this  powerful  invention  prove  to  mankind  a  bless- 
ing or  a  curse  ? — like  the  fire  which  Prometheus  stole  from 
heaven  to  vivify  his  statue,  may  it  not  be  followed  by  the 
evils  of  Pandora's  fatal  casket  ? 

The  lower  classes  of  Belgium  have  formed  an  idea  that  the 
introduction  of  steam  is  to  take  away  their  bread.  Let  us 
examine  whether  there  is  not  in  this  idea  a  degree  of  instinc- 
tive and  prophetic  truth. 

The  axiom  of  our  political  economists  is,  that  the  grand 
object  to  be  sought  and  obtained  is  to  produce  the  greatest 
possible  results  by  the  smallest  possible  means.  The  axiom 
as  an  axiom  by  itself  is  good  ;  but  the  axiom  to  be  opposed 
to  it  is,  that  the  well-being  and  happiness  of  any  State  depend 
upon  obtaining  full  employment  for  the  whole  industry  of  the 
people. 

The  population  of  Belgium  is  enormous.     In  England  we 

calculate  about  eighteen  hundred  souls  to  the  square  league. 

In  Belgium  it  amounts  to  three  thousand  eight  hundred  souls 

to  the  square  league.    Now,  it  would  be  impossible  for  Belgium 

22 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

to  support  this  population,  were  it  not,  in  the  first  place,  for 
her  extensive  manufactories  (for  upon  the  cotton  manufac- 
tories alone,  in  which  the  steam  is  as  yet  but  partially  intro- 
duced, two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  souls  depend  for  their 
existence),  and  in  the  second  place,  from  the  subdivision  of 
the  land  in  small  portions,  arising  from  the  laws  of  inheritance, 
which  bar  the  right  of  primogeniture ;  the  consequence  of 
which  is,  that  the  major  part  of  Belgium  is  cultivated  by  spade 
husbandry,  and  is  in  the  very  highest  state  of  fertilitv.  Never- 
theless, the  proportion  of  those  who  receive  relief  in  Belgium 
from  public  institutions  and  private  charities  of  all  descriptions 
amounts  even  at  present  to  one  in  eight  persona.  Now.  .-ill ow- 
ing that  the  steam-engine  should  be  generally  introduced  into 
this  country,  the  consequence  must  be  that  machinery  will 
supply  the  place,  and  do  the  work  of  man.  And  what  may 
be  the  result?  that  thousands  will  be  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment, and  must  be  supported  by  the  nation.  When  the  popu- 
lation is  so  dense  that  there  is  not  room  for  the  labour  of  its . 
present  inhabitants,  it  is  clear  that  the  introduction  of  machi- 
nery can  have  but  one  effect — that  of  increasing  pauperism. 
Are  not,  then,  the  Belgians  right  in  thinking  that  it  will  deprive 
them  of  their  bread  ? 

That  machinery  has  already  had  that  effect  to  a  certain 
degree  in  England  cannot  be  denied  ;  and  not  only  our  manu- 
facturing, but  our  agricultural,  population  have  been  distressed 
from  an  adherence  to  the  same  principle,  of  obtaining  the 
greatest  possible  results  from  the  smallest  possible  means. 
The  subdivision  of  land  will  do  more  to  relieve  the  agricultural 
distress  than  anything  else.  At  present  large  farms  are  pre- 
ferred both  by  landlord  and  tenant,  because  a  large  farm  can 
be  cultivated  with  a  fewer  number  of  men  and  horses ;  but 
how  does  this  act?  It  throws  a  certain  quantity  of  labourers 
out  of  employ,  who  are  supported  in  idleness.  Is  the  sum 
gained  by  farmers  by  employing  fewer  men  on  large  farms 
more  than  their  proportion  of  the  poor's  rates  paid  for  unpro- 
ductive industry  ?  That  it  may  be  more  to  the  farmers  is 
possible,  as  they  shift  a  great  part  of  the  onus  upon  others  ; 
but  to  the  nation  it  certainly  is  not,  for  the  man  who  docs 
not  work  must  still  be  fed.  May  we  not  then  consider  the 
following  propositions  as  correct  ? 

That,  producing  the  greatest  possible  results  from  the  least 
23 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

possible  means,  is  an  axiom  which  can  only  hold  good  when 
it  does  not  interfere  with  the  industry  of  the  people.  That, 
as  long  as  the  whole  population  are  employed,  such  powers 
become  a  benefit,  and  a  source  of  extra  wealth.  But  that,  in 
proportion  as  it  throws  the  population  out  of  employment,  so 
much  the  more  does  it  prove  an  injury,  and  must  finally  lead 
to  a  state  of  things  which  must  end  in  riot,  anarchy,  and  con- 
fusion. Quod  est  demonstrandum — I  hope  it  will  not  be  in  our 
time. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ANTWERP. 

XWERY  one  has  heard  of  the  cathedral  at  Antwerp  and  the 
fine  pictures  by  Rubens — every  one  has  heard  of  the  siege  of 
Antwerp  and  General  Chasse,  and  how  the  French  marched 
an  army  of  non-intervention  down  to  the  citadel,  and  took  it 
•  from  the  Dutch — and  every  one  has  heard  how  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  protocol-ed  while  Marshal  Gerard  bombard-ed  -  and 
h:>w  it  was  all  bombard  and  bombast.  The  name  of  Lord 
Palmerston  reminds  me  that  conversing  after  dinner  with 
some  Belgians,  the  topic  introduced  was  the  great  dearth  of 
diplomatic  talent  in  a  country  like  England,  where  talent  was 
in  every  other  department  so  extremely  prominent.  It  was 
not  the  first  time  that  this  subject  had  been  canvassed  in 
my  presence  by  foreigners.  Naturally  envious  of  our  general 
superiority,  it  is  with  them  a  favourite  point  of  attack ;  and 
they  are  right,  as  it  certainly  is  our  weakest  point.  They 
cannot  disparage  our  army,  or  our  navy,  or  our  constitution  ; 
but  they  can  our  climate,  which  is  not  our  fault,  but  our  mis- 
fortune ;  and  our  diplomacy,  which  is  our  fault,  and  has  too 
often  proved  our  misfortune  also. 

It  certainly  is  the  fact  that  our  diplomatic  corps  are  very 
inferior ;  and  this  can  arise  but  from  one  cause,  the  emolu- 
ments which  have  been  attached  to  it  having  rendered  admis- 
sion into  it  an  advantage  eagerly  sought  by  the  higher  classes 
as  a  provision  for  the  junior  branches  of  their  families.  Of 
course,  this  provision  has  been  granted  to  those  to  whom 
government  have  felt  most  indebted  for  support,  without  the 
least  regard  to  the  important  point  as  to  whether  those  who 
were  admitted  were  qualified  or  not :  so  that  the  mere  pro- 
24 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

viding  for  a  younger  son  of  an  adherent  to  the  government 
may  have  proved  in  the  end  to  have  cost  the  country  millions 
from  the  incompetence  of  the  party  when  placed  in  a  situation 
requiring  tact  and  discrimination.  This  evil  is  increased  by 
the  system  of  filling  up  the  vacant  appointments  according  to 
seniority — the  exploded  and  absurd  custom  of  "each  second 
being  heir  unto  the  first."  Should  any  man  have  proved,  upon 
an  emergency,  that  he  was  possessed  of  the  highest  talent  for 
diplomacy,  it  will  avail  him  nothing — he  never,  under  the  pre^ 
sent  system,  will  be  employed — he  cannot  be  admitted  into  the 
corps  without  having  entered  as  a  private  secretary  or  attache. 
It  would  be  monstrous,  unheard-of;  and  the  very  idea  would 
throw  Lord  Aberdeen  on  the  one  side,  or  Lord  Palmerston  on 
the  other,  into  convulsions.  Is  it,  therefore,  to  be  wondered 
at  our  being  so  deficient  in  our  diplomatic  corps  ?  Surely  if 
any  point  more  than  another  requires  revision  and  reform,  it 
is  this ;  and  the  nation  has  a  right  to  insist  upon  it. 

It  may  be  asked,  what  are  the  most  peculiar  qualities  neces- 
sary to  a  diplomatist,  taking  it  for  granted  that  he  has  talents, 
education,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  routine  of  busi- 
ness ?  The  only  term  which  we  can  give  to  this  desideratum 
is  presence  of  mind — not  the  presence  of  mind  required  in 
danger,  but  that  presence  of  MIND  which  enables  him,  when 
a  proposition  is  made,  at  once  to  seize  all  its  bearings,  the 
direction  to  which  it  tends,  and  the  ultimate  object  (for  that 
will  be  always  concealed  at  first)  which  the  proposer  may  have 
in  view.  Diplomatists,  when  they  enter  the  field,  are  much 
in  the  situation  of  two  parties,  one  defending  and  the  other 
attacking  a  stronghold.  Admissions  are  highly  dangerous,  as 
they  enable  the  adversary  to  throw  up  his  first  parallels ;  and 
too  often,  when  you  imagine  that  the  enemy  is  not  one  jot 
advanced,  you  find  that  he  has  worked  through  a  covered  way, 
and  you  are  summoned  to  surrender.  It  is  strange  that,  at 
the  very  time  that  they  assert  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  employ  those  as  diplomatists  who  have  not  been  regularly 
trained  to  the  service,  officers  in  the  army  and  captains  in 
the  navy  are  continually  so  employed,  and  often  under  circum- 
stances of  vital  importance.  Now  it  would  be  supposed  that 
the  latter,  of  all  people,  would  be  the  most  unfit ;  as  generally 
speaking,  they  are  sent  to  sea  as  unfit  for  any/king  else.  But 
it  appears  that  once  commanding  a  frigate,  they  are  supposed 
23 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

to  be  fit  for  everything.  A  vessel  is  ordered  for  "  particular 
service,"  why  so  called  I  know  not,  except  that  there  may  be 
an  elision,  and  it  means  "  particularly  disagreeable  service." 
The  captain  is  directed  by  the  Admiralty  to  consider  himself 
tinder  the  orders  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  he  receives  a  huge 
pile  of  documents,  numbered,  scheduled,  and  red-taped  (as 
Bulwer  says  in  his  pamphlet),  the  contents  of  which  he  is  in- 
formed are  to  serve  as  a  guide  for  his  proceedings.  He  reads 
them  over  with  all  their  verbiage  and  technicalities,  sighs  for 
Cobbett's  pure  Saxon,  and  when  he  has  finished,  feels  not  a 
little  puzzled.  Document  No.  4  contradicting  document  No. 
1 2,  and  document  No.  1  opposed  to  No.  56 ;  that  is,  as  he 
reads  and  understands  English.  Determined  to  understand 
them  if  possible,  he  takes  a  dose  of  protocol  every  morning, 
until  he  has  nearly  learnt  them  by  heart,  and  then  acts  to 
the  best  of  his  knowledge  and  belief.  And  it  is  undeniable 
that,  with  very  few  exceptions,  the  navy  have  invariably  given 
satisfaction  to  the  Foreign  Office,  when  they  have  been  so 
employed,  and  often  under  circumstances  of  peculiar  difficulty. 
I  have  heard,  from  the  best  authority,  that  military  men  have 
also  been  equally  successful,  although  they  have  not  so  often 
been  called  into  "  particular  service."  By-the-bye,  particular 
service  is  all  done  at  the  same  price  as  general  service  in  his 
Majesty's  navy,  which  is  rather  unfair,  as  we  are  obliged  to 
find  our  own  red  tape,  pens,  ink,  and  stationery. 

As  I  was  walking  on  the  glacis  with  a  friend,  he  pointed 
out  to  me  at  a  window  an  enormous  fat  man  smoking  his  pipe, 
and  told  me  that  he  had  been  in  the  Dutch  service  under 
William  of  Orange  ;  but  not  being  a  very  good  hand  at  a 
forced  march,  he  had  been  reduced  with  others  to  half-pay. 
He  had  not  been  many  months  in  retirement  when  he  went 
to  the  palace  and  requested  an  audience  of  his  Majesty,  and 
when  admitted,  stated  that  he  had  come  to  request  that  his 
Majesty  would  be  pleased  to  put  him  again  upon  full-pay. 
His  Majesty  raised  many  objections,  and  stated  his  inability 
to  comply  with  his  request;  upon  which  the  corpulent  officer 
exclaimed,  embracing  with  his  arms,  as  far  as  he  could,  his 
enonnous  paunch,  "  My  God !  your  Majesty,  how  can  you 
imagine  that  I  can  fill  this  big  belly  of  mine  with  only  my 
half-pay?"  This  argumentum  ad  venlrem  so  tickled  King 
\Yilliam  that  he  was  put  on  full  pay  unattached,  and  has  con,- 


DIARY   ON  THE   CONTINENT 

tfnued  so  ever  since.  The  first  instance  I  ever  heart!  of  a 
man  successfully  pleading  as  ladies  do  at  the  Old  Bailey. 

It  is  hard  for  a  wanderer  from  childhood  like  me  to  find 
out  anything  new  or  interesting.  I  have  travelled  too  much, 
and  have  seen  too  much — I  seldom  now  admire.  I  draw 
comparisons,  and  the  comparison  drawn  between  the  object 
before  my  eyes  and  that  in  my  mind's  eye  is,  unfortunately, 
usually  in  favour  of  the  latter.  He  who  hath  visited  so  many 
climes,  mingled  with  so  many  nations,  attempted  so  many 
languages,  and  who  has  hardly  anything  left  but  the  North 
Pole  or  the  crater-  of  Vesuvius  to  choose  between,  if  he  still 
longs  for  something  new,  may  well  cavil  at  the  pleasures  of 
memory  as  a  mere  song.  In  proportion  as  the  memory  is 
retentive,  so  is  decreased  one  of  the  greatest  charms  of  exis- 
tence— novelty.  To  him  who  has  seen  much,  there  is  little 
left  but  comparison,  and  are  not  comparisons  universally 
odious  ?  Not  that  I  complain,  for  I  have  a  resource — I  can 
fly  to  imagination,  quit  this  everyday  world,  and  in  the 
region  of  fiction  create  new  scenes  and  changes,  and  people 
these  with  new  beings. 

Moreover,  there  is  still  endless  variety,  endless  amusement, 
and  food  for  study  and  contemplation  in  our  own  species.  In 
all  countries  still  the  same,  yet  ever  varying, 

"  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man." 

From  which,  I  presume,  we  are  to  infer  that  it  is  time  thrown 
away  to  study  woman. 

At  the  same  party  in  which  the  conversation  was  raised 
relative  to  diplomacy,  a  person  with  whom  I  was,  until  that 
day,  wholly  unacquainted  was  sitting  by  me,  and,  as  it  hap- 
pened, the  name  of  one  with  whom  I  had  long  been  on  terms 
of  intimacy  was  mentioned.  "  Do  you  know  him  ?"  said  my 
neighbour,  with  a  very  peculiar  expression.  I  replied  that 
I  had  occasionally  met  him,  for  I  thought  there  was  some- 
thing coming  forward. 

"  Well,  all  I  can  say  is,  that  he  is  rather  a  strange  person." 
"  Indeed  !  "  replied  I  ;  "  how  do  you  mean  ?  " 
"Why,  they  say  that  he  is  of  a  very  uncertain  temper." 
"  Indeed  ! "  continued  I,  with  the  same  look  of  inquiry,  as 
if  demanding  more  information. 

"  Yes,  yes,  rather  a  dangerous  man." 
27 


OLLA   POD  RID  A 

"  Do  you  know  him  ?  "  inquired  I,  in  return. 

"  Yes  ;  that  is  to  say  —  not  very  intimately — the  fact  is, 
that  I  have  avoided  it.  I  grant  that  he  is  a  very  clever  man 
• — but  I  hear  that  he  quarrels  with  everybody." 

"  Who  told  you  so  ?  "  replied  I. 

Oh  !  he  was  not  authorised  to  give  the  name  of  the  person. 

"  Then,"  replied  I,  "  allow  me  to  say  that  you  have  been 
misinformed.  I  have  been  on  intimate  terms  with  that  person 
for  nearly  twenty  years,  during  which  he  never  quarrelled 
with  me  or  any  one  that  I  know  of ;  although,  I  grant,  he  is 
not  over  civil  to  those  whom  he  may  despise.  The  only  part 
of  your  communication  which  is  correct  is  that  he  is  a  very 
clever  man,  and  our  government  are  of  the  same  opinion." 

My  neighbour  was  discomfited  and  said  no  more,  and  I 
joined  the  general  conversation.  What  may  have  been  his 
cause  of  dislike,  I  know  not — but  I  have  frequently  remarked, 
that  if  a  man  has  made  himself  enemies  either  from  neglect 
of  that  sophistry  and  humbug  so  necessary  to  enable  him  to 
roll  down  the  stream  of  time  with  his  fellows  without  attrition, 
if  they  can  find  no  point  in  his  character  to  assail,  their  last 
resort  is  to  assert  that  he  is  an  uncertain-tempered  man,  and 
not  to  be  trusted. 

This  is  the  last,  and  although  not  the  most  empoisoned,  still 
the  surest  shaft  in  the  whole  quiver  of  calumny.  It  does  not 
exactly  injure  the  character,  but  it  induces  others  to  avoid 
the  acquaintance  of  the  party  so  misrepresented. 

It  is  rather  singular,  and  perhaps  I  may  have  been  fortunate, 
but  in  more  than  half-a-dozen  instances  I  have  found  the 
very  parties  to  whom  this  character  has  been  given,  although 
high-minded  and  high-spirited,  the  very  antithesis  to  the 
character  which  has  been  assigned  them.  That  some  do 
deserve  the  character  is  undoubted —  but  there  is  no  species 
of  calumny  to  be  received  with  such  peculiar  caution.  It  may 
be  right  to  be  on  your  guard,  but  it  never  should  be  the 
ground  for  a  positive  avoidance  of  the  party  accused.  Indeed, 
in  some  degree  it  argues  in  his  favour,  for  it  is  clear  that 
the  whole  charge  they  can  bring  against  his  character  is  an 
infirmity  to  which  we  are  all  more  or  less  subjected  ;  and  he 
who  looks  for  perfection  in  his  acquaintance  or  his  friends 
will  inevitably  meet  with  disappointment 

28 


DIARY  ON   THE  CONTINENT 


CHAPTER  VIII 

JL  HAVE  lost  all  my  memoranda !  I  cannot  find  them 
anywhere.  Well — children  are  a  great  blessing  when  they 
are  kept  in  the  nursery — but  they  certainly  do  interfere  a 
little  with  a  papa  who  has  the  misfortune  to  be  an  author.  I 
litt'e  thought,  when  my  youngest  girl  brought  me  up  a  whole 
string  of  paper  dolls,  hanging  together  by  the  arms,  that  they 
had  been  cut  off  my  memoranda.  But  so  it  was ;  and  when 
I  had  satisfactorily  established  the  fact,  and  insisted  upon  an 
inquisition  to  recover  my  invaluables,  I  found  that  they  had 
had  an  auto-da-Jc,  and  that  the  whole  string  of  dolls,  which 
contained  on  their  petticoats  my  whole  string  of  bewitching 
ideas,  had  been  burnt  like  so  many  witches.  But  as  the  man 
said  in  the  packet — "Is  that  all?"  Oh  no! — they  come 
rushing  in  like  a  torrent,  bounding,  skipping,  laughing,  and 
screaming,  till  I  fancied  myself  like  another  Orpheus,  about 
to  be  torn  to  pieces  by  Bacchanals  (they  are  all  girls),  and  I 
laid  down  my  pen,  for  they  drive  all  my  ideas  out  of  my  head. 
May  your  shadows  never  grow  less,  mes  enjans,  but  I  wish  you 
would  not  make  such  a  cursed  row. 

The  author  and  the  author  of  existence  do  not  amalgamate. 
That's  a  fact. 

Their  joyous  countenances  are  answered  by  a  look  of 
despair — their  boiling-water  heat  drives  my  thermometer 
down  to  zero  —  their  confounded  merriment  gives  me  a 
confounded  headache  —  their  animal  spirits  drive  me  to 
vegetable  spirits — their  cup  of  bliss  running  over  makes  me 
also  require  a  bumper — brandy  restores  the  equilibrium,  and 
I  contrive  to  get  rid  of  them  and  my  headache  about  one 
and  the  same  time. 

Talking  about  brandy — one  morning  at  two  o'clock,  about 
the  witching  time  that  ghosts  do  glide  about  in  churchyards, 
as  I  was  thinking  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  go  to  bed 
instead  of  writing  nonsense,  in  which  opinion  most  of  my 
readers  may  coincide  with  me,  in  stalked  three  young  men 
who  were  considerably  the  worse  for  potations.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  character  in  inebriety — at  the  same  time  that  no 
estimate  of  character  can  be  made  from  its  effects;  for  we  often 
29 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

find  the  most  quiet  men  when  sober  to  be  the  most  choleric 
in  their  cups — but  still  there  is  character,  and  much  that  is 
curious  in  witnessing  its  variety  of  effects.  Now,  these  young 
men  were  each  drunk  in  a  very  different  way — the  first,  in 
a  way  quite  novel  ;  for  although  he  could  preserve  his 
equilibrium,  and  stare  immensely,  he  had  lost  the  power 
of  speech ;  you  saw  his  lips  move,  but  no  articulation  or 
sound  succeeded — the  second  was  laughing  drunk  ;  every- 
thing that  was  said,  either  by  himself  or  by  any  one  else,  was 
magnified  into  a  pun  or  bon  mot — the  third,  with  whom  I  had 
no  previous  acquaintance,  was  politely  drunk.  I  presume 
the  idea  of  intruding  himself  upon  a  stranger,  at  such  an 
unseasonable  hour,  had  produced  that  effect — but  let  me 
describe  the  scene. 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha  !  we  come  to  you — ha,  ha  !  capital.  We  want 
some  brandy-and-water ;  and,  ha,  ha !  we  know  you  always 
keep  a  stock,"  said  the  second,  seating  himself  in  an  arm- 
chair. 

The  first  also  took  a  chair,  moved  his  lips  for  a  few  seconds, 
and  then  sat  bolt  upright,  staring  at  the  two  candles ;  how 
many  he  counted  I  cannot  pretend  to  say. 

"Really,"  said  No.  Three,  "we  are — I'm  afraid — taking  a 
great  liberty — a  very  great  liberty  ;  but — an  apology  is  cer- 
tainlv  due — if  you  will  allow  me  to  offer  an  apology  for  my 
two  friends — will  you  allow  me  to  introduce  them?" 

"  Many  thanks,  but  I  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  them 
already." 

"  I  really  beg  your  pardon — it  was  quite  unintentional  on 
my  part.  I  trust  you  are  not  offended  ?  Will  you  allow  me 

to  introduce  myself?     I  am  Captain  C ,  of  the .     Will 

you  permit  me  to  present  my  card,  and  to  say  how  happy  I 
shall  be  to  make  your  acquaintance?"  So  saying,  the  third 
gentleman  presented  me  with  his  card,  and  returned  the 
card-case  into  his  pocket. 

"  Capital !  "  cried  No.  Two.  "  Ha,  ha,  ha  !  what  an  excel- 
lent joke,  ha,  ha,  ha !  Now  for  the  brandy-and-water." 

This  was  soon  produced,  and  although  No.  One  had  lost  all 
articulation,  he  had  still  the  power  of  deglutition  ;  he  filled 
his  glass,  sat  up  more  erect,  stared  at  the  candles,  and  drank 
his  grog  ;  the  other  did  the  same,  when  No.  Three  again 
spoke. 

30 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

"  My  dear  sir,  I  hope  you  will  excuse  the  liberty,  but  my 

name  is  Captain  C ,  of  the .     Will  you  allow  me  the 

honour  of  presenting  my  card,  and  of  saying  how  proud  I 
shall  be  to  make  your  acquaintance  ?  "  So  saying,  he  pre- 
sented me  another  card,  which  I  put  aside  with  the  first. 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha  !  what  a  good  joke,  to  find  you  up.  I  said 
we  should  get  brandy-and-water  here  ;  wasn't  that  capital  ? — 
ha,  ha,  ha,  ha  !  " 

I  could  not  exactly  see  the  joke  of  being  kept  up  for  per- 
haps two  more  hours,  but  I  begged  they  would  refill  their 
glasses,  as  the  sitting  would  be  sooner  ended  one  way  or  the 
other — either  by  the  bottle  being  empty,  or  their  falling 
under  the  table — I  did  not  care  which — when  I  was  again 
addressed  by  No.  Three. 

"  I  really  beg  your  pardon,  but — I'm  afraid  I  have  been 
very  remiss — will  you  allow  me  to  introduce  myself?  I  am 

Captain  C ,  of  the .     Here  is  my  card,  and  I  cannot 

say  how  happy  I  shall  be  if  I  may  have  the  honour  of  your 
acquaintance." 

I  bowed  a  third  time,  and  received  a  third  card. 

"  By  heavens,  I've  finished  my  tumbler  !  Ain't  that 
capital  ?  Ha,  ha,  ha  !  famous  fun  ; — and  so  has  Alfred." 

"  Famous  fun,  indeed,"  thought  I,  as  the  contents  of  the 
bottle  disappeared. 

"  And  Alfred  is  going  to  help  himself  again  ;  well,  that  is 
capital,  ha,  ha,  ha  ! — ha,  ha,  ha  ! — ha,  ha,  ha,  ha  !  " 

Alfred,  who  was  No.  One,  moved  his  lips,  but  like  the 
frozen  horn  of  Munchausen,  sounds  would  not  come  out  ;  he 
did,  however,  follow  up  the  joke  by  refilling  his  tumbler  for 
the  third  time. 

"  Upon  my  honour,  I've  been  very  rude,  I  ought  to  apolo- 
gise," said  No.  Three,  again  drawing  out  his  card-case  ;  "but 

will  you  allow  me  to  offer  my  card  ?     I  am  Captain  C ,  of 

the ,  and  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  make  your  acquaint- 
ance." 

I  bowed  again,  and  received  the  fourth  card. 

Thus  were  the  changes  rung  by  numbers  one,  two,  and 
three,  until  I  was  tired  out,  two  bottles  more  drunk  out,  and 
I  had  received  fifteen  cards  from  my  very  polite  friend,  whom 
I  had  never  seen  before. 

At  four  o'clock  they  all  rose  to  depart. 
31 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"Upon  my  soul,  I  do  believe  I'm  drunk/'  said  No.  Two. 
"  Capital  joke — ha,  ha,  ha  !  " 

No.  One  continued  dumb  ;  brandy  had  not  thawed  him  : 
but  he  stared  very  hard  at  me,  as  much  as  to  say,  I  would 
speak  if  I  could. 

No.  Three  put  into  my  hand  the  sixteenth  card,  and  made 
a  rash  attempt  at  a  bow. 

Having  seen  them  fairly  outside  my  door,  I  bolted  it, 
saying  with  Shakspcare  — 

"  Oh  I  that  man 

Should  put  an  enemy  in  his  mouth, 
To  steal  away  his  brains  !  " 

I  have  been  this  morning  to  visit  an  establishment  founded 
by  two  brothers  of  the  name  of  Van  der  Maelen.  It  com- 
prehends natural  history,  botany,  geography,  and  statistics, 
and  they  have,  moreover,  a  lithographic  press  for  maps  and 
plates.  It  is  a  very  curious  and  very  spirited  undertaking. 
As  yet  the  whole  has  been  effected  by  their  own  means, 
which  are  extensive,  and  without  any  assistance  from  govern- 
ment. How  few  people  in  this  world  employ  their  money  so 
usefully  !  This  establishment  is  but  yet  in  its  infancy,  and  the 
collections  are  not  very  valuable,  although  rapidly  increasing, 
from  the  interest  felt  by  every  one  in  its  welfare. 

Of  all  collections  of  natural  history,  the  fossil  department 
is,  to  me,  the  most  interesting  ;  there  is  room  for  speculation 
and  reflection,  till  the  mind  is  lost  in  its  own  wanderings, 
which  I  consider  one  of  the  greatest  delights  of  existence. 
We  are  indebted  to  the  vast,  comprehensive  mind  and  inde- 
fatigable labour  of  Cuvier  for  the  gleams  of  light  which  have 
lately  burst  upon  us,  and  which  have  rendered  what  was 
before  mere  speculative  supposition  now  a  source  of  in- 
teresting and  anxious  investigation,  attended  with  results 
that  are  as  satisfactory  as  they  are  undeniable. 

That  there  was  a  period  when  the  surface  of  the  earth  was 
almost  entirely  covered  with  water — a  state  between  chaos 
and  order,  when  man  was  not  yet  created  (for  that  then  the 
•world  had  not  yet  been  rendered  by  the  Almighty  a  fit 
receptacle  for  man),  appears  to  be  undoubted.  Yet  the 
principle  of  life  had  been  thrown  forth  by  the  Almighty 
32 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

Hand,  and  monsters  had  been  endowed  with  vitality,  and 
with  attributes  necessary  for  their  existence  upon  an  inter- 
mediate world. 

These  were  the  many  varieties  of  the  Ichthyosauri  and  the 
Plesiosauri,  of  whose  remains  we  have  now  such  abundant 
specimens — all  animals  of  the  lizard  species ;  some  supposed 
to  have  been  supplied  with  wings,  like  the  flying  fish  of  the 
present  day. 

But  imagine  an  animal  of  the  lizard  species,  one  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  long — imagine  such  a  monster — the  existence 
of  which  is  now  proved  beyond  a  cavil,  by  the  remains  deeply 
imbedded  in  the  hard  blue  lias  rocks,  and  which  remains  are 
now  in  our  possession.  What  a  terrific  monster  it  must  have 
been  !  We  look  with  horror  at  an  alligator  of  twenty  or 
thirty  feet,  but  imagine  an  animal  of  that  species  extending 
his  huge  bulk  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet !  Were  they 
all  destroyed  when  the  waters  were  separated  from  the  land, 
or  did  they  gradually  become  extinct  when  the  earth  was  no 
longer  a  suitable  habitation  for  them,  and  no  longer  congenial 
to  those  properties  with  which  they  had  been  endowed  when 
ordered  into  existence  by  the  Almighty  power  ?  The  de- 
scription of  the  Behemoth,  by  Job,  has  long  been  a  puzzle  to 
the  learned  ;  we  have  no  animal  of  the  present  time  which 
will  answer  to  it,  but,  in  many  points,  this  description  will 
answer  to  what  may  be  supposed  would  be  the  appearance, 
the  muscular  power,  and  the  habits  of  this  huge  denizen  of  a 
former  world. 

"  His  force  is  in  the  navel  of  his  belly. 
He  moveth  his  tail  like  a  cedar. 
His  bones  are  as  strong  pieces  of  brass  ; 
His  bones  are  like  bars  of  iron. 

He  lieth  under  the  shady  trees,  in  the  covert  of  the  reeds,  and  fens. 
The  shady  trees  cover  him  with  their  shadow  ; 
The  willows  of  the  brook  compass  him  about." 

It  may  be  a  matter  of  deep  surmise,  whether  all  animals 
were  created  as  we  now  find  them,  that  is,  whether  the  first 
creation  was  final — or  how  far  the  unerring  hand  has  permitted 
a  change  to  take  place  in  the  forms  and  properties  of  animals, 
so  as  to  adapt  them  to  their  peculiar  situations.  I  would  say, 
whether  the  Almighty  may  not  have  allowed  the  principle  of 
33  c 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

vitality  and  life  to  assume,  at  various  epochs,  the  form  and 
attributes  most  congenial  to  the  situation,  either  by  new 
formation  or  by  change. 

May  not  the  monster  of  former  worlds  have  dwindled  down 
to  the  alligator  of  this — the  leviathan  to  the  whale  ?  Let  us 
examine  whether  we  have  any  proofs  in  existing  creation  to 
support  this  supposition.  We  all  know  that  the  hair  of  the 
goat  and  sheep  in  the  torrid  zones  will  be  changed  into  wool 
when  they  are  taken  to  the  colder  climes,  and  that  the  reverse 
will  also  take  place  ;  we  know  that  the  hare  and  weazle  tribes, 
whose  security  is  increased  from,  their  colour  so  nearly  ap- 
proaching to  that  of  the  earth  in  temperate  latitudes,  have  the 
same  protection  afforded  to  them  when  they  are  found  in  the 
regions  of  snow,  by  their  changing  to  white ;  and  we  know 
that  the  rete  mucositm  of  the  African  enables  him  to  bear  the 
exposure  to  a  tropical  sun  which  would  destroy  an  European. 
But  this  is  not  sufficient :  we  must  examine  further.  Sir 
Humphrey  Davy  has  given  us  a  very  interesting  account  of  a 
small  animal  found  in  the  pools  of  water  in  the  caves  in 
Carniola  ;  this  animal  is  called  the  Proteus  Anguinus,  or  Syren  ; 
it  is  a  species  of  eel  with  two  feet — a  variety  only  to  be  found 
in  these  caves ;  it  lives  in  darkness,  and  exposure  to  the  light 
destroys  it.  Now,  here  is  an  animal  which  we  must  either 
suppose  to  have  been  created  at  the  universal  creation — and 
that  is  to  suppose  that  these  caves  and  pools  of  water  have 
also  existed  from  the  time  of  the  creation — or  that  the  principle 
of  vitality  has  been  permitted,  at  a  later  date,  to  take  that 
fonn  and  those  attributes  congenial  to  its  situation  :  it  is  a 
curious  problem.  Again,  it  is  well  known  that  on  the  continent 
of  New  Holland  there  are  animals  who  have  a  property  pecu- 
liar to  that  continent  alone — that  of  a  pouch  or  false  stomach, 
to  contain  their  young  after  their  birth.  It  has  been  surmised 
that  at  one  time  the  major  part  of  that  continent  was  under 
water,  and  that  this  pouch  was  supplied  to  them  for  the  safety 
of  their  young  ;  nor  is  this  conjecture  without  strong  grounds. 
If  only  the  kangaroo  and  opossum  tribes,  which  are  animals 
peculiarly  indigenous  to  that  continent,  were  supplied  with 
this  peculiar  formation,  the  conjecture  would  fall  to  the  ground, 
as  it  might  fairly  be  said  that  this  property  was  only  another 
proof  of  the  endless  variety  in  creation  ;  but  the  most  remark- 
able fact  is  that  not  only  the  kangaroo  and  opossum,  animals 
34 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

indigenous  and  peculiar  to  that  portion  of  the  globe,  but  that 
every  variety  of  squirrel,  rat,  and  mouse,  which  in  every  other 
respect  are  of  the  same  species  as  those  found  on  the  other 
continents,  are  all  of  them  provided  with  this  peculiar  false 
pouch  to  contain  their  young.  Why,  therefore,  should  all 
these  have  been  supplied  with  it,  if  not  for  a  cause  ?  And  the 
question  now  arises,  whether  at  the  first  creation  they  had 
that  pouch,  or  were  permitted  so  far  to  change  their  formation 
when  the  pouch  became  necessary  for  the  preservation  and 
continuation  of  these  species  ?  That  these  changes  are  the 
changes  of  centuries,  I  grant,  and,  therefore,  are  not  likely  to  be 
observed  by  man,  whose  records  or  whose  knowledge  are  not 
permitted  to  be  handed  down  beyond  a  certain  extent  Know- 
ledge is  not  happiness  ;  and  when  the  accumulation  has  arrived 
to  that  height  so  as  to  render  it  dangerous,  it  is  swept  away 
by  the  all-wise  and  benevolent  Creator,  and  we  are  permitted 
to  begin  again  de  novo.  After  all,  what  we  term  posterity  is 
but  a  drop  of  water  in  the  ocean  of  Time. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BRUSSELS. 

1  HERE  are  few  people  in  Brussels,  indeed  in  Belgium,  who 
do  not  complain  of  the  revolution  ;  all  that  goes  wrong  is  at 
once  ascribed  to  this  cause — indeed,  I  was  rather  staggered  by 
one  gentleman  at  Ghent,  telling  me  very  gravely  that  they 
had  had  no  fat  oxen  since  the  revolution  ;  but  this  he  explained 
by  stating  that  the  oxen  were  fattened  from  the  refuse  of 
several  manufactories,  all  of  which  had  been  broken  up,  the 
proprietors  having  quitted  for  Holland.  The  revolution  has 
certainly  been,  up  to  the  present  time,  injurious  to  both 
countries,  but  it  is  easy  to  foretell  that  eventually  Belgium  will 
flourish,  and  Holland,  in  all  probability,  be  the  sufferer.  The 
expenses  of  the  latter  even  now  are  greater  than  her  revenue, 
and  when  the  railroads  of  Belgium  have  been  completed,  as 
proposed,  to  Vienna,  the  revenue  of  Holland  will  be  propor- 
tionally decreased,  from  her  loss  of  the  carrying  trade.  It 
may  be  urged  that  Holland  can  also  have  her  railroads — but 
she  cannot ;  so  large  a  proportion  of  her  population  find  their 
jupport  at  present  on  the  canals  that  a  railroad  would  be 
35 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

productive  of  the  most  injurious  effects.  It  is  true  that  she 
can  lower  her  rates  of  carriage,  but  the  merchant  will  save  ten 
days  of  transport  by  the  railroads,  and  this  rapidity  of  commu- 
nication will  always  obtain  the  preference. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  future  prospects  of  Belgium,  it  is 
certain  that,  from  the  heavy  expenses  attending  the  support  of 
so  large  an  army,  the  retirement  into  Holland  of  most  of  the 
influential  and  wealthy  commercial  men,  and  the  defection  of 
almost  all  the  nobility,  at  present  she  is  suffering.  Brussels, 
her  capital,  has  perhaps  been  most  injured,  and  is  no  longer 
the  gay  and  lively  town  which  it  was  under  the  dynasty  of 
King  William  of  Nassau.  When  the  two  countries  were 
united,  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Dutch  Court  to  divide  the  year 
between  Brussels  and  the  Hague ;  and  as  there  was  not  only 
the  establishment  of  the  king,  but  also  those  of  Princes  William 
and  Frederick  (in  fact,  three  Courts),  as  well  as  all  the  nobility 
of  Holland  and  Belgium,  there  was  an  overflow  of  wealth,  of 
company,  and  of  amusement,  which  rendered  Brussels  one  of 
the  most  delightful  winter  residences  on  the  Continent ;  but 
this  has  now  all  passed  away.  The  Court  of  Leopold,  in 
consequence  of  the  radical  party  having  the  entire  sway,  is  but 
a  shadow,  as  nearly  all  the  Belgian  nobility  have  retired  from 
it.  The  few  who  reside  in  town  will  not  visit  at  the  palace, 
and  live  in  seclusion,  receiving  no  company,  and  spending  no 
money ;  the  majority,  however,  have  eitluer  removed  from 
Brussels  to  their  country  seats,  or  have  left  the  kingdom  to 
spend  their  revenue  amongst  foreigners. 

At  present  there  are  but  few  English  here,  it  being  no 
longer  the  scene  of  gaiety,  and  there  are  other  reasons  which 
gradually  decrease  the  number.  The  fact  is,  that  Brussels  is 
not  a  very  cheap  residence.  The  duties  on  everything  are 
now  enormous,  and  the  shopkeepers  prey  upon  the  English 
as  much  as  they  can,  having  avowedly  two  prices,  one  for 
them,  and  the  other  for  the  Belgians.  There  are  very  few 
amusements,  and  the  people,  since  the  revolution,  are  rude  and 
bearish,  imagining  that  by  incivility  they  prove  their  liberty 
and  independence.  The  other  towns  of  Belgium  are  very  dull 
and  very  cheap — Brussels  is  very  dull  and  very  dear.  In 
another  point,  Brussels  presents  a  contradiction  to  all  the  other 
capitals  of  Europe,  in  which  you  generally  find  the  most 
polished  manners  and  the  greatest  beauty  in  the  female  sex 
36 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

concentrated.  At  Brussels  it  is  directly  the  reverse — the  men 
are  uncivil  and  the  women  plain  ;  whereas,  in  the  Belgian 
provinces  you  will  meet  with  civility  and  respect,  and  at 
Antwerp,  Ostend,  and  most  other  provincial  towns  fall  in  with 
many  fine  countenances,  reminding  you  of  the  Spanish  blood 
which  has  been  for  centuries  mingled  with  that  of  the  Low 
Provinces. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  many  advantages  in  Brussels ;  the 
communication  with  England  is  so  rapid,  and  its  situation  so 
central,  that  it  may  be  considered  as  the  point  from  which 
travellers  diverge  on  their  various  routes. 

About  the  end  of  May  the  arrivals  and  departures  from 
Brussels  are  constant ;  this  stream  continues  to  pour  through 
the  city  for  three  months,  after  which,  as  the  Belgians  do  not 
mix  with  the  foreign  residents,  the  latter  are  left  entirely  to 
their  own  resources  for  amusement.  But  the  greatest  objec- 
tion to  Brussels  is  that  the  English  have  brought  with  them 
the  English  feeling.  I  hardly  know  how  else  to  term  it,  but  it 
certainly  is  a  feeling  peculiarly  English,  which  has  taken  deep 
root  within  this  last  half  century,  and  which  has  already  pro- 
duced much  evil,  and  may  eventually  be  productive  of  more 
serious  results.  I  refer  to  the  system  of  spending  more  money 
than  you  can  afford,  to  enable  you  to  hold  a  certain  position 
in  the  scale  of  society. 

For  these  last  forty  years,  during  which  immense  fortunes 
have  been  made  in  England,  there  has  been  a  continued 
struggle  of  wealth  against  rank.  Parvenus,  as  the  aristocracy 
have  been  pleased  to  call  them,  have  started  up  in  every  direc- 
tion, vying  with,  and  even  eclipsing  the  nobility  in  lavish 
expenditure — in  some  instances,  driving  the  aristocracy  to 
spend  more  money  than  they  could  afford,  and  thereby  im- 
poverishing them ;  in  others,  forcing  admittance  into  their 
circles.  Wealth  and  public  opinion  have  latterly  gained  the 
ascendency,  and  the  aristocracy  are  now  more  looked  up  to 
on  account  of  their  large  possessions  than  of  their  high  birth. 
Now  this  has  been  nothing  more  than  a  demand  for  greater 
liberty  and  more  extended  rights  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
moners of  England,  in  proportion  as  they  found  themselves 
a  more  important  body  in  the  State.  It  has  not  been  a  case 
of  Magna  Charta,  but  it  is  still  analogous ;  for  they  have 
demanded  that  the  barrier  raised  between  them  and  the  aris- 
37 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

tocracy  should  be  thrown  down,  as  soon  as  they  possessed  all 
the  advantages,  with  the  exception  of  that  nominal  rank,  the 
title  too  often  conferred  without  discrimination  on  the  one 
hand,  or  claims  on  the  other. 

As  soon  as  a  partial  breach  had  been  made  in  this  barrier, 
every  one  rushed  for  admittance,  displaying  wealth  as  their 
ticket  of  admission,  and  the  consequence  has  been  that  wealth 
has  now  become  the  passport  into  society ;  but  another  con- 
sequence has  also  ensued,  which  is  that,  to  obtain  entrance, 
almost  everybody  has  been  living  and  keeping  up  an  appear- 
ance which  has  not  been  warranted  by  their  means.  Many  have 
exceeded  their  incomes,  and  then  sunk  down  into  poverty ; 
others  have,  perhaps,  only  lived  up  to  their  incomes  ;  but,  in 
so  doing,  have  disappointed  those  who,  induced  by  the 
appearance  of  so  much  wealth,  have  married  into  the  family, 
and  discovered  that  they  have  obtained  wives  with  expensive 
ideas  and  no  money.  But  there  have  been  other  reasons 
which  have  induced  some  to  live  beyond  their  means — they 
have  done  it  in  the  pure  spirit  of  gambling.  In  England 
credit,  next  to  money,  is  of  most  value,  and  according  to 
their  supposed  wealth  so  did  the  parties  obtain  credit ;  an  ex- 
penditure beyond  their  means  was,  therefore,  with  commercial 
men,  nothing  more  than  speculation,  which  very  often  suc- 
ceeded, and  eventually  procured  to  the  parties  the  means  of 
expenditure.  It  is  well  known  that  the  income  tax,  in  many 
cases,  was  paid  double  ;  commercial  men  preferring  to  give  in 
their  income  at  twice  its  real  value,  and  pay  the  tax  to  that 
amount,  that  they  might  be  supposed  to  possess  more  than 
they  really  had  ;  indeed,  as  it  was  imagined  that  a  man  would 
evade  so  heavy  an  impost  as  much  as  possible,  he  was  generally 
considered  to  be  worth  even  more  than  what  he  himself  had 
stated.  It  is  from  these  causes  that  has  arisen  what  I  have 
called  the  English  feeling,  for  display  beyond  the  means,  and 
which  has  made  our  countrymen  look  down  upon  those  who 
cannot  compete  with  them  in  expense.  Let  a  married  couple 
be  ever  so  well  connected — let  them  have  talent,  and  every 
other  advantage,  it  will  avail  them  nothing  if  they  have  not 
money,  sufficient  at  least  to  keep  a  carriage,  and  not  shock 
the  mistress  of  a  house  by  the  sound  of  the  rattling  steps  of 
a  hackney-coach  at  her  door;  besides  which,  in  our  commercial 
country,  the  principle  of  barter,  of  quid  pro  quo,  is  extended 
38 


DIARY  ON   THE  CONTINENT 

even  to  dinner  and  evening  parties — and  the  reason  is  obvious ; 
when  people  live  to  the  full  extent,  or  even  beyond  their 
incomes,  a  little  management  is  required.  A  dinner-party  is 
so  arranged  that  the  dinners  received  from  others  are  returned 
to  them,  and  they  cannot  afford  to  ask  a  couple  who  cannot  give 
them  a  dinner  in  return,as  they  would  fill  up  the  places  of  others 
to  whom  a  dinner  is  due,  and  who,  if  not  asked  then,  must  be  at 
another  time  ;  and  an  extra  dinner  is  an  extra  expense  to  be 
avoided.  The  English,  therefore,  who  have  only  moderate 
incomes  have  the  choice  either  to  live  beyond  their  means,  and 
leave  their  children  unprovided  for,  or  of  being  shut  out  from 
that  society  to  which,  by  every  other  but  the  adventitious  claim 
of  wealth,  they  are  entitled.  The  consequence  has  been  that 
since  the  peace  thousands  and  thousands  have  settled  on  the 
Continent,  that  they  may  make  more  display  with  a  small 
income,  and  thousands  more  with  a  much  better  feeling,  to 
avoid  expense,  and  lay  by  a  provision  for  their  children.  Of 
course,  all  these  remarks  are  made  with  reservation,  but  with 
reservation,  it  may  be  said,  that  in  England  we  have,  or  so.on 
shall  have,  only  two  classes  left,  the  extreme  rich  and  the 
extreme  poor,  for  the  intermediate  classes  are  gradually  retiring 
to  the  Continent,  emigrating  to  Canada  and  America,  or  sink- 
ing down  into  the  second  class. 

This  is  a  most  dangerous  state  of  society,  and,  if  carried  to 
the  extreme,  has  always  proved  ruinous  to  the  Slate.  Although 
the  immense  extent  of  the  Roman  empire  may  be  asserted 
as  the  ultimate  cause  of  its  downfall,  still  that  downfall  was 
most  certainly  accelerated  by  the  rottenness  at  the  core,  the 
system  of  patrons  and  clients  having  thrown  all  the  wealth  into 
the  hands  of  a  few.  Are  we  not  rapidly  advancing  to  this 
state  in  England  ?  The  landholders  are  almost  at  the  mercy 
of  the  fundholders,  who,  in  fifty  years'  time,  will  probably  have 
possession  of  the  land  as  well  as  of  the  money.  And  should 
there  be  no  check  put  to  this  disintegration  of  society,  then 
must  come,  what  the  radicals  are  now  so  anxious  to  obtain,  the 
equitable  adjustment;  and  in  that  case  it  is  a  problem  how 
far  that  may  not  be  really  equitable,  for  society  may,  by 
degrees,  arrive  t»t  a  state  so  anomalous  as  to  warrant  that  the 
few  should  be  sacrificed  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  at 
large. 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

CHAPTER  X 

BRUSSELS,  May  22. 

.A.MONG  the  lions  of  Brussels,  a  dog  was  pointed  out  to  me, 
as  he  lay  on  the  pavement  in  front  of  the  House  of  Assembly. 
It  was  a  miserable  looking  cur ;  but  he  had  a  tale  extra 
attached  to  him,  which  had  magnified  him  into  a  lion.  It  was 
said  that  he  belonged  to  a  Dutch  soldier  who  was  killed  in  the 
revolution,  at  the  spot  where  the  dog  then  lay,  and  that  ever 
since  (a  period  of  four  years)  the  animal  had  taken  up  his 
quarters  there,  and  invariably  lain  upon  that  spot.  Whether 
my  informant  lied,  and  the  dog  did  not,  I  cannot  pretend  to 
say ;  but  if  the  story  be  true,  it  was  a  most  remarkable 
specimen  of  fidelity  and  ugliness.  And  he  was  a  sensible 
dog,  moreover  ;  instead  of  dying  of  grief  and  hunger,  as 
some  foolish  dogs  have  done,  he  has  always  dedicated  an 
hour  every  evening  to  cater  for  his  support,  and  then  returns 
to  pass  the  night  on  the  spot.  I  went  up  to  him,  and  when 
within  two  yards  he  thought  proper  to  show  his  teeth  and 
snarl  most  dogmatically  ;  I  may,  therefore,  in  addition  to 
his  other  qualities,  state  that  he  is  an  ill-natured  dog.  How 
far  the  report  was  correct  I  cannot  vouch,  but  1  watched 
him  three  or  four  days,  and  always  found  him  at  his  post; 
and  after  such  strict  investigation,  had  I  asserted  ten  years 
instead  of  four,  I  have  a  prescriptive  right  as  a  traveller  to 
be  believed. 

It  is  singular  that  it  is  only  in  England  that  you  can 
find  dogs,  properly  so  called ;  abroad  they  have  nothing 
but  curs.  I  do  not  know  anything  more  puzzling  than  the 
genealogy  of  the  animals  you  meet  with  under  the  denomina- 
tion of  dogs  in  most  of  the  capitals  of  Europe.  It  would 
appear  as  if  the  vice  of  promiscuous  and  unrestricted  inter-' 
course  had  been  copied  from  their  masters ;  and  I  have 
been  almost  tempted  to  take  up  the  opinion,  that  you  may 
judge  of  the  morality  of  a  capital  from  the  degeneracy  of 
the  dogs.  I  have  often,  at  Paris,  attempted  to  make  out  a 
descent ;  but  found  it  impossible.  Even  the  late  Sir  G. 
Naylor,  with  all  the  herald's  office,  stimulated  by  double 
fees,  could  not  manage  to  decipher  escutcheons  obliterated 
by  so  many  crosses. 

4P 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 

I  am  very  partial  to  dogs,  and  one  of  my  amusements, 
when  travelling,  is  to  watch  their  meetings  with  each  other ; 
they  appear  to  me  to  do  everything  but  speak.  Indeed,  a 
constant  observer  will  distinguish  in  dogs  many  of  the  pas- 
sions, virtues,  and  vices  of  men ;  and  it  is  generally  the  case, 
that  those  of  the  purest  race  have  the  nobler  qualifications. 
You  will  find  in  them  devotion,  courage,  generosity,  good 
temper,  sagacity,  and  forbearance;  but  these  virtues,  with 
little  alloy,  are  only  to  be  found  in  the  pure  breeds.  A  cur 
is  quite  a  lottery ;  he  is  a  most  heterogeneous  compound  of 
virtue  and  vice,  and  sometimes  the  amalgamation  is  truly 
ludicrous.  Notwithstanding  which,  a  little  scrutiny  of  his 
countenance  and  his  peculiar  movements  will  soon  enable 
you  to  form  a  very  fair  estimate  of  his  general  character  and 


disposition. 


disposition. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  qualities  in  dogs  is  the  fidelity 
of  their  attachments ;  and  the  more  so  as  their  attachments 
are  very  often  without  any  warrantable  cause.  For  no  reason 
that  can  be  assigned,  they  will  take  a  partiality  to  people 
or  animals,  which  becomes  a  feeling  so  dominant  that  their 
existence  appears  to  depend  upon  its  not  being  interfered 
with.  I  had  an  instance  of  this  kind,  and  the  parties  are  all 
living.  I  put  up  for  an  hour  or  two,  at  a  livery  stables  in  town, 
i.  pair  of  young  ponies.  On  my  taking  them  out  again,  the 
phaeton  was  followed  by  a  large  coach-dog  about  two  years 
old,  a  fine  grown  animal,  but  not  well  marked,  and  in  very  poor 
condition.  He  followed  us  into  the  country  ;  but  having  my 
establishment  of  dogs  (taxes  taken  into  consideration),  I 
ordered  him  to  be  shut  out.  He  would  not  leave  the  iron 
gates  ;  and  when  they  were  opened,  in  he  bolted,  and  hastening 
to  the  stables,  found  out  the  ponies,  and  was  not  to  be  dis- 
lodged from  under  the  manger  without  a  determined  resist- 
ance. This  alternate  bolting  in  and  bolting  out  continued 
for  many  d?.ys.  Finding  that  I  could  not  get  rid  of  him,  I  sent 
him  away  forty  miles  in  the  country  ;  but  he  returned  the 
next  day,  expressing  the  most  extravagant  joy  at  the  sight  of 
the  ponies,  who,  strange  to  say,  were  equally  pleased,  allowing 
him  to  put  his  paws  upon  them,  and  bark  in  their  faces.  But 
although  the  ponies  were  partial  to  the  dog,  I  was  not ;  and 
aware  that  a  voyage  is  a  great  specific  for  curing  improper 
attachments,  I  sent  the  dog  down  the  river  in  a  barge,  re- 

A  1 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

questing  the  men  to  land  him  where  they  were  bound,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Medway  ;  but  in  three  days  the  dog  again 
made  his  appearance,  the  picture  of  famine  and  misery.  Even 
the  coachman's  heart  was  melted,  and  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  his  favourite  snow-white  terrier  were  forgotten.  It  was, 
therefore,  agreed,  in  a  cabinet  council  held  in  the  harness-room, 
that  we  must  make  the  best  of  it ;  and,  as  the  dog  would  not 
leave  the  ponies,  the  best  thing  we  could  do  was  to  put  a  little 
flesh  on  his  bones,  and  make  him  look  respectable.  We 
therefore  victualled  him  that  day,  and  put  him  on  our  books 
with  the  purser's  name  of  Pompey.  Now,  this  dog  proved 
that,  sudden  as  was  his  attachment  to  the  ponies,  it  was  of  the 
strongest  quality.  He  never  would  and  never  has  since  left 
these  animals.  If  turned  out  in  the  fields,  he  remains  out 
with  them,  night  as  well  as  day,  taking  up  his  station  as 
near  as  possible  half  way  between  the  two,  and  only  coming 
home  to  get  his  dinner.  No  stranger  can  enter  their 
stables  with  impunity  ;  for  he  is  very  powerful,  and  on  such 
occasions  very  savage.  A  year  or  two  after  his  domicilia- 
tion  I  sold  the  ponies,  and  the  parties  who  purchased  were 
equally  anxious  at  first  to  get  rid  of  the  dog;  but  their 
attempts,  like  mine,  were  unavailing,  and,  like  me,  they  at 
last  became  reconciled  to  him.  On  my  return  from  abroad 
I  repurchased  them,  and  Pompey,  of  course,  was  included 
in  the  purchase. 

We  are  none  of  us  perfect — and  Pompey  had  one  vice  ;  but 
the  cause  of  the  vice  almost  changed  it  into  a  virtue.  He  had 
not  a  correct  feeling  relative  to  meum  and  tumn,  but  still  he 
did  not  altogether  steal  for  himself,  but  for  his  friends  as  well. 
Many  have  witnessed  the  fact  of  the  dog  stealing  a  loaf,  or 
part  of  one,  taking  it  into  the  stables,  and  dividing  it  into 
three  portions,  one  for  each  pony,  and  the  other  for  himself. 
I  recollect  his  once  walking  off  with  a  round  of  beef  weighing 
seventeen  or  eighteen  pounds,  and  taking  it  to  the  ponies  in 
the  field ;  they  smelt  at  it,  but  declined  joining  him  in  his 
repast.  By-the-bye,  to  prove  that  lost  things  will  turn  up 
some  day  or  another,  there  was  a  silver  skewer  in  the  beef, 
which  was  not  recovered  until  two  years  afterwards,  when  it 
was  turned  up  by  the  second  ploughing.  One  day,  as  the 
ponies  were  in  the  field  where  I  was  watching  some  men  at 
work,  I  heard  them  narrating  to  a  stranger  the  wonderful  feats 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

of  this  dog,  for  I  have  related  but  a  small  portion.  The  dog 
was  lying  by  the  ponies  as  usual,  when  the  servants'  dinner- 
bell  rang,  and  off  went  Pompey  immediately  at  a  hard  gallop 
to  the  house  to  get  his  food.  "Well,  dang  it,  but  he  is 
a  queer  dog,"  observed  the  man,  "for  now  he's  running  as 
fast  as  he  can  to  answer  the  bell." 


CHAPTER  XI 

May  23. 

W  ITH  all  the  faults  of  the  Roman  Church,  it  certainly  ap- 
pears to  me  that  its  professors  extend  towards  those  who  are 
in  the  bosom  of  their  own  Church  a  greater  share  than  most 
other  sects  of  the  true  spirit  of  every  religion — charity.  The 
people  of  the  Low  Countries  are  the  most  bigoted  Catholics  at 
present  existing,  and  in  no  one  country  is  there  so  much  private 
as  well  as  public  charity.  It  is,  however,  to  private  charity  that 
I  refer.  In  England  there  is  certainly  much  to  be  offered  in  ex- 
tenuation, as  charity  is  extorted  by  law  to  the  utmost  farthing. 
The  baneful  effects  of  the  former  poor  laws  have  been  to  break 
the  links  which  bound  together  the  upper  and  lower  classes, 
produced  by  protection  and  goodwill  in  the  former,  and  in 
the  latter  by  respect  and  gratitude.  Charity  by  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment has  dissolved  the  social  compact — the  rich  man  grumbles 
when  he  pays  down  the  forced  contribution — while  the  poor 
man  walks  into  the  vestry  with  an  insolent  demeanour,  and 
claims  relief,  not  as  a  favour,  but  as  a  right.  The  poor  laws 
have  in  themselves  the  essence  of  revolution,  for  if  you  once 
establish  the  right  of  the  poor  man  to  any  portion  of  the  pro- 
perty of  the  rich,  you  admit  a  precedent  so  far  dangerous,  that 
the  poor  may  eventually  decide  for  themselves  what  portion 
it  may  be  that  they  may  be  pleased  to  take ;  and  this  be- 
comes the  more  dangerous,  as  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
effect  of  the  poor  laws  is  repulsion  between  the  two  classes,  from 
the  one  giving  unwillingly  and  the  other  receiving  unthaiik- 
fully.  How  the  new  Poor  Law  Bill  will  work  remains  to  be 
proved  ;  but  this  is  certain,  that  much  individual  suffering 
must  take  place  before  it  works  out  the  great  end  which  it  is 
intended  to  obtain. 

That  the  Roman  Catholic  laity  are  more  charitable  is  not  a 
43 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

matter  of  surprise,  as  they  are  not  subjected  to  forced  contri- 
butions ;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  the  Catholic  clergy  are 
much  more  careful  and  kind  to  their  flocks  than  our  own. 
How,  indeed,  can  it  be  otherwise,  when  even  now,  although 
so  much  reform  in  the  Church  has  been  effected,  so  many  of 
our  clergymen  are  pluralists  and  non-residents,  expending  the 
major  part  of  the  Church  revenue  out  of  the  parish,  leaving  to 
the  curate,  who  performs  the  duty,  a  stipend  which  renders  it 
impossible  for  him  to  exercise  that  part  of  his  Christian  duty 
to  any  extent  ? — for  charity  begins  at  home,  and  his  means  will 
not  allow  him  to  proceed  much  farther.  That  serious  evils 
have  arisen  from  the  celibacy  of  the  Roman  clergy  is  true,  for 
priests  are  but  men,  and  are  liable  to  temptation ;  but  it  is 
equally  certain  that  when  a  Roman  Catholic  clergyman  is  a 
pure  and  pious  man,  he  has  nothing  to  distract  his  attention 
from  the  purposes  of  his  high  calling,  and  not  only  his  whole 
attention  is  devoted  to  his  flock,  but  his  existence,  if  necessary, 
is  voluntarily  endangered.  At  the  period  of  the  cholera  there 
were  many  remarkable  instances  of  this  devotion  to  death  on 
the  part  of  the  Roman  priesthood,  and  as  many,  I  am  forced  to 
say,  of  the  Protestant  clergy  flying  from  the  epidemic,  and 
leaving  their  flocks  without  a  shepherd.  And  why  so  ? 
Because  the  Protestant  clergymen  had  wives  and  families 
depending  upon  them  for  support,  whose  means  of  existence 
would  terminate  with  their  own  lives.  It  was  very  natural  that 
they  should  prefer  the  welfare  of  their  own  families  to  that  of 
their  parishioners.  But  in  other  cases  not  so  extreme,  the  en- 
cumbrance of  a  family  to  a  clergyman  in  England  is  very  often 
in  opposition  to  his  duty.  To  eke  out  a  scanty  remuneration, 
he  sets  up  a  school  or  takes  in  pupils.  Now,  if  the  duties  of 
a  clergyman  consisted  in  merely  reading  the  services  on  a 
Sunday,  and  christening,  burying,  and  marrying,  he  might 
well  do  so ;  but  the  real  duties  of  a  clergyman  are  much  more 
important.  His  duty  is  to  watch  over  the  lives  and  conduct 
of  his  parishioners,  to  exhort,  persuade,  and  threaten,  if  neces- 
sary ;  to  be  ever  among  his  flock,  watching  them  as  a  shepherd 
does  his  sheep.  And  how  can  he  possibly  do  this  if  he  takes 
charge  of  pupils  ?  He  must  either  neglect  his  pupils  or  neglect 
his  parish  ;  he  cannot  do  justice  to  both.  As  St.  Paul  says  to 
the  bishops,  "  Although  it  is  better  to  marry  than  burn,  still 
it  is  better  to  be  even  as  I  am,"  unencumbered  with  wife  and 
44 


DIARY   ON   THE  CONTINENT 

family,  and  with  no  ties  to  distract  my  attention  from  my 
sacred  and  important  calling. 

But  the  public  charitable  institutions  abroad  are  much  better 
conducted  than  those  of  England,  where  almost  everything  of 
the  kind  is  made  a  job,  and  a  source  of  patronage  for  pretend- 
ing pious  people,  who  work  their  way  into  these  establishments 
for  their  own  advantage.  It  is  incredible  the  number  of  poor 
people  who  are  effectually  relieved  on  the  Continent  in  the 
course  of  the  year  at  an  expense  which  would  not  reach  the 
weekly  disbursements  of  a  large  parish  in  England.  But  then, 
how  much  more  judicious  is  the  system !  I  know  for  a  fact 
that,  in  the  county  where  I  reside,  and  in  which  the  hard- 
working labourer,  earning  his  twelve  shillings  a  week,  is  quite 
satisfied  if  he  can  find  sufficient  bread  for  his  family  (not  tast- 
ing meat,  perhaps,  ten  times  during  the  whole  year),  those 
who  were  idlers,  supported  by  charity,  were  supplied  with 
meat  three  or  four  times  a  week ;  nay,  even  the  felons  and 
prisoners  in  the  county  gaol  were  better  fed  than  was  the 
industrious  working-man.  And  this  is  what  in  England  is 
called  charity.  It  is  base  injustice  to  the  meritorious.  But 
many  of  the  charitable  institutions  in  England,  from  mal- 
administration, and  pseudo-philanthropy,  have  become  very 
little  better  than  establishments  holding  out  premiums  for 
idleness  and  hypocrisy. 

Among  the  institutions  founded  by  Roman  Catholics  and 
particularly  deserving  of  imitation,  that  of  the  Soeurs  de  la 
Charite  appears  to  be  the  most  vahaable.  It  is  an  institution 
which,  like  mercy,  is  twice  blessed — it  blesses  those  who  give 
and  those  who  receive.  Those  who  give,  because  many  hun- 
dreds of  females,  who  would  otherwise  be  thrown  upon  the 
world,  thus  find  an  asylum,  and  become  useful  and  valuable 
members  of  society.  They  take  no  vows — they  only  conform 
to  the  rules  of  the  sisterhood  during  the  time  that  they  remain 
in  it,  and  if  they  have  an  opportunity,  by  marriage  or  other- 
wise, of  establishing  themselves,  they  are  at  free  liberty  to 
depart.  How  many  young  women,  now  forced  into  a  wretched, 
wicked  life,  would  gladly  incorporate  themselves  into  such  a 
society  in  England  ;  how  many,  if  such  a  society  existed,  would 
be  prevented  from  falling  into  error ! 

It  is  well  known,  that  to  support  a  large  community  the 
expenses  are  trifling  compared  to  what  they  are  when  you 
45 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

have  the  same  number  of  isolated  individuals  to  provide  for. 
A  company  of  two  or  three  hundred  of  these  Sisters  living 
together,  performing  among  themselves  the  various  household 
duties,  washing,  &c.,  and  merely  requiring  their  food,  would 
not  incur  the  same  expense  in  house-rent,  firing,  and  provi- 
sions, as  thirty  or  forty  isolated  individuals.  Soldiers  in 
barracks  are  even  well  fed,  housed,  and  clothed,  at  a  much 
less  expense  than  it  costs  the  solitary  labourer  to  eat  his 
dry  bread  in  his  own  cottage ;  and  the  expenses  of  such  com- 
munities, if  once  established,  would  very  soon  be  paid  by 
their  receipts. 

It  would  be  a  double  charity — charity  to  those  who  would 
willingly  embrace  the  life,  and  charity  to  those  who  might 
require  their  assistance.  It  is  well  known  how  difficult  it  is 
to  obtain  a  sick-nurse  in  London.  It  is  an  avocation  seldom 
embraced  by  people,  until  they  are  advanced  in  years,  and 
all  feeling  has  been  dried  up  by  suffering  or  disappointment. 
Those  who  undertake  the  task  are  only  actuated  by  gain,  and 
you  can  expect  but  eye-service.  Not  being  very  numerous, 
and  constantly  in  demand,  they  are  over-worked,  and  require 
stimulants  in  their  long  watchings.  In  fact,  they  drink  and 
dose — dose  and  drink  again. 

But  how  different  would  it  be  if  the  establishments  which 
I  have  referred  to  were  formed  !  Those  who  are  wealthy 
would  send  for  one  of  the  Sisters  when  required,  and  if  the 
illness  were  tedious,  her  service  could  be  replaced  by  another, 
so  that  over  fatigue  might  not  destroy  watchfulness  and  atten- 
tion to  the  patient.  You  would  at  once  feel  that  you  had 
those  in  your  house  in  whom  you  could  confide.  If  your  means 
enabled  you,  you  would  send  a  sum  to  the  funds  of  the  charity 
in  return  for  the  service  performed,  and  your  liberality  would 
enable  them  to  succour  those  who  could  only  repay  by  bless- 
ings. A  very  small  subscription  would  set  afloat  such  a 
charity,  as  the  funds  would  so  rapidly  come  in ;  and  if  under 
the  surveillance  of  the  medical  men  who  attended  the  hospitals, 
it  would  soon  become  effective  and  valuable.  I  trust  if  this 
should  meet  the  eye  of  any  real  philanthropist  who  has  time 
to  give,  which  is  more  valuable  than  money,  that  he  will  turn 
it  over  in  his  mind  :  the  founder  would  be  a  benefactor  to  his 
country. 

46 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT    . 
CHAPTER  XII 

May  25. 

A.  MAN  cannot  die  more  than  once,  is  an  old  apothegm, 
and  it  would  appear  bold  to  dispute  it ;  but  still  there  are 
lives  within  lives,  such  as  political  lives,  literary  lives,  &c.,  and 
there  is  also  such  a  thing  as  being  dead  in  the  eye  of  the  law; 
so  that  it  is  evident  that  a  man  can  die  twice,  that  is,  once 
professionally  or  legally,  and  once  naturally. 

I  presume,  like  all  other  scribblers,  I  must  meet  my  literary 
death,  that  is,  when  I  have  written  myself  down,  or  have 
written  myself  out.  I  have  no  objection,  for  I  am  very  weary 
of  my  literary  existence,  although  authors  are  not  so  in 
general ;  on  the  contrary,  they  can  perceive  in  themselves  no 
sign  of  decay  when  it  is  apparent  to  everybody  around  them. 
Literary  decay  is  analogous  to  the  last  stage  of  a  consumption, 
in  which  you  believe  you  are  not  going  to  die,  and  plan  for 
the  future  as  if  you  were  in  perfect  health.  And  yet  to  this 
complexion  must  all  authors  come  at  last.  There  is  not  a 
more  beautiful,  or  more  true  portrait  of  human  nature,  than 
the  scene  between  the  Archbishop  of  Grenada  and  Gil  Bias, 
in  the  admirable  novel  of  Le  Sage.  Often  and  often  has  it 
been  brought  to  my  recollection  since  I  have  taken  up  the 
pen,  and  often  have  I  said  to  myself,  "  Is  this  homily  as  good 
as  the  last  ? "  (perhaps  homily  is  not  exactly  the  right  term 
for  my  writings).  The  great  art  in  this  world,  not  only  in 
writing,  but  in  everything  else,  is  to  know  when  to  leave  off. 
The  mind  as  well  as  the  body  must  wear  out.  At  first  it  is  a 
virgin  soil,  but  we  cannot  renew  its  exhausted  vigour  after  it 
has  borne  successive  crops.  We  all  know  this,  and  yet  we  are 
all  archbishops  of  Grenada.  Even  the  immortal  Walter  Scott 
might  have  benefited  by  the  honesty  of  Gil  Bias,  and  have 
burnt  his  latter  homilies ;  but  had  he  had  such  an  unsophisti- 
cated adviser,  would  he  not,  in  all  probability,  have  put  him 
out  by  the  shoulders,  wishing  him,  like  the  venerable  hierarch, 
f<  a  little  more  taste  than  judgment." 

Since  I  have  been  this  time  abroad,  I  have  made  a  discovery 

for  which  all  prose  writers  ought  to  feel  much  indebted  to  me. 

Poets   can   invoke   Apollo,   the   Muses,  the   seasons,   and  all 

Sorts  and  varieties  of  gods  and  goddesses,  naked  or  clothed, 

47 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

besides  virtues  and  vices,  and  if  none  of  them  suit  they  may 
make  their  own  graven  image,  and  fall  down  before  it ;  but 
we  prose  writers  have  hitherto  had  no  such  advantage,  no 
protecting  deity  to  appeal  to  in  our  trouble,  as  we  bite  our 
pens,  or  to  call  upon  them  to  deliver  us  from  a  congestion  of 
the  brain.  Now,  being  aware  that  there  were  upwards  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  canonised  saints  on  the  Roman 
calendar,  I  resolved  to  run  through  the  catalogue,  to  ascertain 
if  there  was  one  who  took  prose  authors  under  his  protection, 
and  to  my  delight  I  stumbled  upon  our  man.  By-the-bye,  Tom 
Moore  must  have  known  this,  and  he  has  behaved  very  ill  in 
keeping  him  all  to  himself.  But  I  must  introduce  him.  It  is 
the  most  holy  and  the  most  blessed  St.  Brandon.  Holy 
St.  Brandon,  inspire  me,  and  guide  my  pen  while  I  record 
thy  legend!  In  the  first  place,  let  me  observe  that  our  patron 
saint  was  an  Irishman,  and  none  the  worse  for  that,  as  Ireland 
has  had  as  good  saints  as  any  in  the  calendar.  And  it  is  now 
clear  that  he  does  protect  us  prosaic  writers,  by  the  number 
of  reporters  and  gentlemen  of  the  press  who  have  been  sent 
over  from  the  sister  kingdom.  But  to  proceed. 

St.  Brandon,  it  appears,  was  a  reading  man,  and  amused 
himself  with  voyages  and  travels ;  but  St.  Brandon  was  an 
unbeliever,  and  thought  that  travellers  told  strange  things. 
He  took  up  the  Zoology  of  Pliny,  and  pursued  his  accounts 
of  "Antres  vast,  and  men  whose  heads  do  grow  beneath  their 
shoulders."  He  read  until  his  patience  was  exhausted,  and  in 
a  fit  of  anger  he  threw  the  manuscript  into  the  flames.  Now 
this  was  a  heavy  sin,  for  a  man's  book  is  the  bantling  of  his 
brain,  and,  to  say  the  least,  it  was  a  literary  infanticide.  That 
very  night  an  angel  appeared  to  him,  and  as  a  penance  for  his 
foul  crime  (in  the  enormity  of  which  every  author  will  agree 
with  the  angel),  he  was  enjoined  to  make  the  book  over  again, 
no  easy  task  in  those  days,  when  manuscripts  were  rare,  and 
the  art  of  book-making  had  not  been  invented.  The  sinner, 
in  obedience  to  the  heavenly  mission,  goes  to  work  ;  he 
charters  a  vessel,  lays  in  provisions  for  a  seven  years'  voyage, 
and,  with  a  crew  of  seven  monks,  he  makes  sail,  and  after 
going  round  the  world  seven  times,  during  which  the  world 
went  round  the  sun  seven  times,  he  completed  his  task  in 
seven  volumes  folio,  which  he  never  published,  but  carried  his 
manuscript  away  with  him  to  prove  that  he  had  performed  hig 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

penance.  For  this  miraculous  voyage — and  certainly,  with 
such  a  ship's  company,  it  was  a  miracle- — he  was  canonised, 
and  is  now  the  patron  saint  of  all  prose  authors,  particularly 
those  whose  works  are  measured  by  the  foot-rule. 

And  now  that  I  have  made  known  to  my  fraternity  that 
we  also  have  a  saint,  all  they  have  to  do  is  to  call  upon  him 
six  or  seven  times,  when  their  brains  are  at  sixes  and  sevens. 
I  opine  that  holy  St.  Brandon  made  a  very  hazard-ous  voyage, 
for  it  is  quite  clear  that,  in  the  whole  arrangement,  it  was — 
seven's  the  main. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

En  route,  May  26. 

JL  ASSED  Waterloo — was  informed  that,  two  days  before, 
the  Marquis  of  Anglesea  had  arrived  there,  and  stayed  a 
short  time  to  visit  the  cemetery  of  his  leg;  a  regular  family 
visit,  of  course,  as  all  the  members  were  present. 

May  27. 

Slept  at  Namur.  The  French  are  certainly  superior  to  us 
in  the  art  of  rendering  things  agreeable.  Now,  even  in  the 
furnishing  of  a  common  apartment,  there  is  always  something 
to  relieve  the  eye,  if  not  to  interest  you.  I  recollect  when  I 
was  last  in  London,  in  furnished  apartments,  that  as  I  lay 
awake  in  the  morning,  my  eye  caught  the  pattern  of  the 
paper.  It  was  a  shepherdess  with  her  dog  in  repose,  badly 
executed,  and  repeated  without  variation  over  the  whole 
apartment.  Of  course  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  calculate 
how  many  shepherdesses  and  dogs  there  were  in  the  room, 
which,  by  counting  the  numbers  in  length  and  breadth, 
squaring  the  result,  and  deducting  for  door  and  windows, 
was  soon  accomplished.  But  how  different  was  the  effect 
produced  by  the  paper  of  the  room  in  which  I  slept  last 
night !  It  was  the  history  of  Dunois,  the  celebrated  bastard 
of  France,  who  prays  in  his  youth  that  he  may  prove  the 
bravest  of  the  brave,  and  be  rewarded  with  the  fairest  of  the 
fair.  This  was  not  the  true  history,  perhaps,  of  Dunois ;  but 
I  am  drawing  the  comparison  between  the  associations  and 
reminiscences  conjured  up  by  this  decoration  in  opposition 
to  the  dull  and  tasteless  recapitulation  of  the  English  manu- 
49  0 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

facture.  From  the  latter  I  could  not  extract  a  bare  idea, 
except  that  shepherdesses  are,  as  a  race,  extinct,  and  that  Lord 
Althorp  had  taken  the  tax  off  shepherds'  dogs,  by  way  of  a 
bonus,  to  relieve  a  distressed  capital  of  some  hundred  millions, 
to  which  the  agricultural  interest  had  very  properly  replied, 
"Thank  you  for  nothing,  my  lord;"  but  from  the  sight  of 
the  French  paper  what  a  host  of  recollections  started  up  at 
the  moment !  The  mind  flew  back  to  history,  and  was  revel- 
ling in  all  the  romance  of  chivalry,  from  King  Arthur  and  his 
Knights,  to  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold. 

"  Yet,  after  all,"  thought  I,  at  the  end  of  a  long  reverie, 
"divest  chivalry,  so  called,  of  its  imposing  effect,  examine 
well  into  its  nature  and  the  manners  of  the  times,  and  it  must 
be  acknowledged  that  the  modern  warfare  has  a  much 
greater  claim  than  the  ancient  to  the  title  of  chivalry.  In 
former  times  men  were  cased  in  armour  of  proof,  and,  before 
the  discovery  of  gunpowder,  had  little  to  fear  in  a  mtfec, 
except  from  those  who,  like  themselves,  were  equally  well 
armed  and  equally  protected,  and  even  then  only  from  flesh 
wounds,  which  were  seldom  mortal.  The  lower  classes,  who 
served  as  common  soldiers,  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  mounted 
spearsmen,  and  could  seldom  make  any  impression  upon  their 
defences.  In  those  day,  as  in  the  present,  he  who  could 
command  most  gold  carried  the  day,  for  the  gold  procured  the 
steel  harness,  and  a  plump  of  spears  brought  into  the  field  was 
more  than  equal  to  a  thousand  common  men.  He  who  had 
the  best  tempered  armour  was  the  most  secure,  and  that  was 
to  be  only  procured  by  gold.  He  who  could  mount  and  case 
in  iron  the  largest  number  of  his  followers  was  the  most 
powerful,  and,  generally  speaking,  the  most  lawless.  Divest 
chivalry  of  its  splendour,  which  threw  a  halo  round  it,  and  it 
was  brutal  and  almost  cowardly.  Single  combats  did  certainly 
prove  courage ;  but  even  in  them,  skill,  and  more  than  skill, 
personal  strength,  or  the  best  horse,  decided  the  victory.  In 
fact,  although  not  the  origin,  it  was  the  upholder  of  the  feudal 
system,  in  which  might  was  right ;  and,  we  may  add,  that  the 
invention  of  gunpowder,  which  placed  every  man  upon  a  level, 
if  not  the  cause  of,  certainly  much  assisted  to  break  up  the 
system.  How  much  more  of  the  true  spirit  of  chivalry  is 
required  in  the  warfare  of  the  present  day,  in  which  every  man 
must  stand  for  hours  to  be  shot  at  like  a  target,  witnessing 


DIARY  ON   THE   CONTINENT  m 

the  mowing  down  of  his  comrades,  and  silently  filling  up  the 
intervals  in  the  ranks  made  by  their  deaths,  exposed  to  the 
same  leaden  messengers  ;  a  system  of  warfare  in  which  every 
individual  is  a  part  of  a  grand  whole,  acting  upon  one  concerted 
and  extended  plan,  and  forced  a  hundred  times  to  exhibit  the 
passive  and  more  perfect  bravery  of  constancy,  for  once  that 
he  may  forget  his  danger  in  the  ardour  of  the  charge  !  When 
shall  we  learn  to  call  things  by  their  right  names  ?  " 

'  LlfcGE,  May  28. 

Our  landlord  is  a  most  loyal  man,  but  there  is  a  reason  for 
it.  Leopold  took  up  his  quarters  at  this  hotel  on  his  way  to 
Spa.  In  every  room  we  have  upon  every  article  of  faijcncc — 
"  Leopold,  with  the  Genius  of  Belgium  crowning  him  with 
laurels,  while  Truth  is  looking  on."  Every  plate,  every  dish, 
is  impressed  with  this  proof  print  of  loyalty.  But  this  is  not 
all,  as  the  man  said  in  the  packet,  "  Oh  no  ! "  All  the  wash- 
hand  basins,  jugs,  and  every  other  article  required  in  a  bed- 
chamber, have  the  same  loyal  pattern  at  the  bottom.  Now  it 
appeared  to  me,  when  I  went  to  bed,  that  loyalty  might  be 
carried  too  far ;  and  what  may  have  been  intended  as  respect 
may  be  the  cause  of  his  Majesty  being  treated  with  the 
greatest  disrespect ;  and  not  only  his  sacred  Majesty,  but  the 
glorious  Belgian  constitution  also.  As  for  poor  Truth,  she  is 
indeed  said  to  sojourn  at  the  bottom  of  a  well ;  but  in  this 
instance  it  would,  perhaps,  be  as  well  that  she  should  not  be 
insulted — I  am  wrong,  she  always  is,  and  always  will  be, 
insulted,  when  she  appears  in  the  purlieus  of  a  court,  or  in 
the  presence  of  a  king. 

After  all,  mine  is  a  strange  sort  of  Diary.  It  is  not  a  diary 
of  events,  but  of  thoughts  and  reminiscences,  which  are  thrown 
up  and  caught  as  they  float  to  the  surface  in  the  whirlpool  of 
my  brain.  No  wonder ! — events  are  but  as  gleanings  com- 
pared to  the  harvest  of  many  years,  although  so  negligently 
gathered  into  store.  I  have  been  puzzling  myself  these  last 
two  hours  to  find  out  what  a  man's  brain  is  like.  "  It  is  like  a 
kaleidoscope,"  thought  I;  "it  contains  various  ideas  of  peculiar 
colours,  and  as  you  shift  them  round  and  past,  you  have  a  new 
pattern  every  moment."  But  no,  it  was  not  like  a  kaleido- 
scope, for  the  patterns  of  a  kaleidoscope  are  regular,  and  there 
is  very  little  regularity  in  my  brain,  at  all  events. 
51 


OLLA   PODRIOA 

"  It  is  like  a  pawnbroker's  shop,"  said  I,  "  full  of  hetero- 
geneous pledges;  and  if  you  would  take  anything  out, 
experience  stands  at  the  counter,  and  makes  you  pay  her 
compound  interest,  while  many  articles  of  value  are  lost  for 
ever,  because  memory  cannot  produce  the  duplicate." 

And  then  I  compared  it  to  almost  everything,  but  none  of 
my  comparisons  would  hold  good.  "  After  all,"  thought  I, 
"  I  have  been  only  playing  at  '  What  are  my  thoughts  like  ? ' 
which  is  a  childish  game ;  and  how  can  I  possibly  find  out 
what  my  brain  is  like,  when  my  brain  don't  choose  to  tell  ?  " 
So  I  rose,  and  opening  the  window,  lighted  my  cigar,  and 
smoked  myself  into  a  reverie,  as  I  watched  the  smoke  ascend- 
ing from  the  chimneys  of  the  good  town  of  Liege. 

"And  this  is  the  city  which  travellers  pass  through,  de- 
scribing it  as  a  mere  manufacturing  town,"  thought  I.  "  A 
city  which  has,  in  its  time,  produced  a  greater  moral  influence 
upon  society  than  any  other  in  existence — a  city  that  has  led 
the  van  in  the  cause  of  religion  e,nd  liberty."  Liege  presents 
a  curious  anomaly  among  the  states  of  Europe.  It  is  the  only 
town  and  province,  with  the  exception  of  Home,  which  has 
been,  for  centuries,  ruled  by  the  clerical  power.  But  be  it 
recollected,  that  at  the  very  period  that  Christianity  was  offer- 
ing up  her  martyrs  in  the  blood-stained  arena  of  the  Coliseum, 
it  .was  from  Liege  (or  rather  Tongres,  for  Liege  was  not  then 
built)  that  she  was  spreading  wide  her  tenets,  unpersecuted 
and  unrestrained,  for  she  was  too  far  removed  from  idolatry 
and  imposture  to  be  regarded.  The  province  of  Liege  was 
the  cradle  of  the  Christian  faith.  From  the  earliest  records 
there  were  bishops  at  Tongres  ;  and  it  was  about  five  hundred 
years  after  Christ  that  St.  Monulphe,  the  reigning  bishop, 
founded  the  city  of  Liege.  From  that  time  until  the  French 
Revolution,  this  town  and  these  fertile  provinces  had  always 
remained  under  clerical  authority. 

Although  these  prince-bishops  proved  that,  upon  necessity, 
they  could  change  the  crosier  for  the  coat  of  mail,  still,  as  by 
endowments  and  benefactions  they  increased  their  revenues, 
so  did  they,  by  the  mildness  of  their  sway,  induce  thousands 
to  settle  in  their  territory ;  and  to  increase  their  population 
(which  was  to  increase  their  wealth),  they  first  granted  to 
their  citizens  those  privileges  and  liberties  which  have,  upon 
their  precedent,  been  obtained  by  force  or  prayers  by  others. 
52 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

The  very  boast  of  the  English  of  the  present  day,  that  every 
man's  house  i<s  his  castle,  was  the  sacred  grant  of  one  of  the 
bishops  to  the  citizens  at  Liege,  long  before  the  feudal  system 
had  been  abolished  in  our  island. 

I  may  also  observe,  for  it  is  to  be  gained  from  the  chronicles 
of  this  province,  that  the  time  at  which  it  may  be  said  that  the 
primitive  Christian  Church  first  fell  into  error,  appears  to  have 
been  about  one  thousand  years,  after  the  death  of  our  Saviour. 
And  as  I  thought  of  all  this,  and  a  great  deal  more,  and  smoked 
my  cigar,  I  felt  a  great  deal  of  respect  for  the  good  old  city  of 
Liege  ;  and  then  I  wandered  back  to  the  country  I  had  passed 
through  Irlie  day  before,  excelling  in  all  lovely  scenery.  I  had 
seen  it  before,  but  it  was  many  years  ago  ;  and  it  may  be  seen 
many  times  without  the  least  degree  of  satiety.  I  do  not  kno\V 
any  scenery  which  raises  up  such  pleasurable  sensations  as  that 
of  the  Valley  of  Meuse,  taking  it  the  whole  way  from  Namur 
to  Liege,  and  from  Liege  to  Spa.  It  is  not  so  magnificent  as 
the  Rhine,  to  which  it  bears  a  miniature  resemblance.  It  is 
not  of  that  description  creating  a  strong  excitement,  almost 
invariably  succeeded  by  depression  ;  but  it  is  of  that  unchang- 
ing and  ever-pleasing,  joyous  description,  that  you  are  de- 
lighted without  being  fatigued,  and  have  stimulus  sufficient 
to  keep  you  constantly  in  silent  admiration,  without  demand- 
ing so  much  from  the  senses  as  to  weary  them.  If  I  could 
have  divested  myself  of  the  knowledge  that  I  was  in  motion, 
and  have  fancied  that  the  scene  was  moving  past,  I  could 
have  imagined  myself  seated  at  one  of  our  large  theatres, 
watching  one  of  Stansfield's  splendid  panoramas.  But  the 
lighted  end  of  my  cigar  at  last  approximated  so  near  to  my 
nose  that  I  was  burnt  out  of  my  reverie  ;  I  took  the  last  save- 
all  whiffs,  tried  to  hit  an  old  woman's  cap  with  the  end  of  it, 
as  I  tossed  it  into  the  street,  and  retreated  to  the  diurnal  labour 
of  shaving — of  all  human  miseries,  certainly,  the  "  unkindest 
cut  of  all " — especially  when  the  maids  have  borrowed  your 
razor,  during  your  absence,  to  pare  down  the  apex  of  their 
corns. 


53 


OLLA   PODRIDA 


CHAPTER  XIV 

_  . 

1  HAVE  been  reading  the  "Salmonia"  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy  ; 
what  a  pity  it  is  that  lie  did  not  write  more  !  there  are  so 
many  curious  points  started  in  it.  I  like  that  description  of 
book  which,  after  reading  a  while,  you  drop  on  your  knee,  and 
are  led  into  a  train  of  thought  which  may  last  an  hour,  before 
you  look  for  the  page  where  you  left  off.  There  are  two  cases 
argued  in  this  work,  which  led  me  into  a  meditation.  The 
one  is,  a  comparison  between  reason  and  instinct,  and  the 
other,  as  to  the  degree  of  pain  inflicted  upon  fish  by  taking 
them  with  the  hook.  Now,  it  appears  to  me,  in  the  first 
question,  what  has  been  advanced  is  by  no  means  conclusive, 
and  although  it  is  the  custom  to  offer  a  penny  for  ycur 
thoughts,  I  shall  give  mine  for  nothing,  which  is  perhaps  as 
much  as  they  are  worth  (I  say  that  to  prevent  others  from 
making  that  sarcastic  remark),  and  in  the  second  question,  I 
think  I  can  assist  the  cause  of  the  lovers  of  the  gentle  art  of 
angling  —  why  gentle,  I  know  not,  unless  it  be  that  anglers 
bait  with  sentlcs,  and  are  mostly  gentle-men. 

But  before  I  attempt  to  prove  that  angling  is  not  a  cruel 
sport,  I  must  get  rid  of  "reason  and  instinct."  Of  reason 
most  undoubtedly  a  philanthropist  would  reply,  "  Be  it  so  ;  '* 
nevertheless,  I  will  argue  the  point,  and  if  I  do  not  succeed, 
I  have  only  to  hedge  back  upon  Solomon,  and  inquire,  "  If 
man  was  born  to  misery  as  the  sparks  fly  upwards,  why  are 
not  the  inferior  classes  of  creation  to  have  their  share 
of  it?" 

I  do  not  think  that  any  one  can  trace  out  the  line  of  demar- 
cation between  reason  and  instinct.  Instinct  in  many  points 
is  wonderful,  especially  among  insects,  but  where  it  is  wonder- 
ful, it  is  a  blind  obedience,  and  inherited  from  generation  to 
generation.  We  observe,  as  in  the  case  of  the  bees,  that  they 
obey  the  truest  laws  of  mathematics,  and  from  these  laws  they 
never  have  deviated  from  their  creation,  and  that  all  animals, 
as  far  as  their  self-defence  or  sustenance  is  concerned/  show  a 
wonderful  blind  obedience  to  an  unerring  power,  and  a  sagacity 
almost  superior  to  reason.  But  wonderful  as  this  is,  it  is  still 
but  instinct,  as  the  progenitors  of  the  race  were  equally  guided 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

by  it,  and  it  is  handed  down  without  any  improvement,  or  any 
decay  in  its  power.  Now,  if  it  could  be  asserted  that  the 
instinct  of  animals  was  only  thus  inherited  from  race  to  race, 
and  could  "go  no  further,"  the  line  of  demarcation  between 
reason  and  instinct  would  at  once  be  manifest,  as  instinct 
would  be  blindly  following  fixed  laws,  while  reason  would 
ever  be  assisted  by  memory  and  invention.  But  we  have  not 
this  boasted  advantage  on  the  side  of  reason,  for  animals  have 
both  memory  and  invention,  and,  moreover,  if  they  have  not 
speech,  they  have  equal  means  of  communicating  their  ideas. 
That  this  memory  and  invention  cannot  be  so  much  exercised 
as  our  own,  may  be  true,  but  it  is  exercised  to  an  extent  equal 
to  their  wants,  and  they  look  no  further ;  that  is  to  say,  that 
if  any  want  not  prepared  for,  or  anything  should  take  place 
interfering  with  their  habits  and  economy,  instinct  will  enable 
them  to  meet  the  difficulty.  There  is  nothing  more  wonderful 
than  the  application  of  mechanical  power  by  ants.  No  engineer 
could  calculate  with  greater  nicety,  and  no  set  of  men  work 
together  with  such  combination  of  force.  After  they  have 
made  ineffectual  attempts  to  remove  a  heavy  body,  you  will 
observe  them  to  meet  together,  consult  among  themselves, 
and  commence  an  entire  new  plan  of  operations.  Bees,  also, 
are  always  prepared  to  meet  any  new  difficulty.  If  the  sphinx 
atropos,  or  death's-head  moth,  forces  its  way  into  the  hive,  the 
bees  are  well  known,  after  having  killed  it  with  their  stings, 
to  embalm  the  dead  body  with  wax — their  reason  for  this  is 
that  the  body  was  too  large  for  them  to  remove  through  the 
passage  by  which  it  entered,  and  they  would  avoid  the  un- 
pleasant smell  of  the  carcass.  It  may  be  argued,  that  instinct 
had  always  imparted  to  them  this  knowledge ;  but  if  so, 
they  must  have  had  a  fresh  accession  of  instinct  after  they 
,had  been  domiciled  with  men ;  for  it  is  well  known  that 
the  hole  in  the  tree,  in  which  the  wild  bees  form  their 
cells,  is  invariably  too  small  to  admit  any  animal  larger 
than  themselves,  and  the  bodies  of  such  sized  animals  they 
could  remove  with  as  much  ease  as  they  do  the  bodies  of 
their  own  dead. 

I  could  cite  a  hundred  instances  which  would  prove  that 
animals  have  invention  independent  of  the  instinct  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation.  I  will,  however,  content 
myself  with  one  instance  of  superior  invention  in  the  elephant 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

which  occurred  at  Ceylon.  Parties  were  employed  felling 
timber  in  the  forests  of  Candia,  and  this  timber,  after  having 
been  squared,  was  dragged  to  the  depot  by  a  large  party  of 
elephants,  who,  with  their  keepers,  were  sent  there  for  that 
purpose.  This  work  was  so  tedious  that  a  large  truck  was 
made,  capable  of  receiving  a  very  heavy  load  of  timber,  which 
might  be  transported  at  once.  This  truck  was  to  be  dragged 
out  by  the  elephants,  and  to  be  loaded.  I  should  here  ob- 
serve, that  when  elephants  work  in  a  body,  there  is  always 
one  who,  as  if  by  common  consent,  takes  the  lead,  and  directs 
the  others,  who  never  refuse  to  obey  him.  The  keepers  of 
the  elephants,  and  the  natives,  gave  their  orders,  and  the 
elephants  obeyed  ;  but  the  timber  was  so  large,  and  the  truck 
so  high  on  its  wheels,  that  the  elephants  could  not  put  the 
timber  in  the  truck  according  to  the  directions  given  by  the 
men.  After  several  attempts,  the  natives  gave  up  the  point, 
and  retiring  to  the  side  of  the  road  as  usual,  squatted  down, 
and  held  a  consultation.  In  the  meantime,  the  elephant  who 
took  the  lead  summoned  the  others,  made  them  drag  two  of 
the  squared  pieces  to  the  side  of  the  truck,  laid  them  at  right 
angles  with  it,  lifting  one  end  of  each  on  the  truck,  and  leav- 
ing the  other  on  the  ground,  thus  forming  the  inclined  plane. 
The  timber  was  then  brought  by  the  elephants,  without  any 
interference  on  the  part  of  the  keepers  or  natives,  who  re- 
mained looking  on,  was  pushed  by  the  elephants  with  their 
foreheads  up  the  inclined  plane,  and  the  truck  was  loaded. 
Here,  then,  is  an  instance  in  which  the  inventive  instinct  of 
the  animal — if  that  term  may  be  used — was  superior  to  the 
humbler  reasoning  powers  of  the  men  who  had  charge  of 
them. 

That  animals  have  the  powers  of  memory  as  well  as  men, 
admits  of  no  dispute.  In  elephants,  horses,  and  dogs,  we 
have  hourly  instances  of  it ;  but  it  descends  much  lower  down 
— the  piping  bullfinch,  who  has  been  taught  to  whistle  two  or 
three  waltzes  in  perfect  concord,  must  have  a  good  memory, 
or  he  would  soon  forget  his  notes.  To  detail  instances  of 
memory  would,  therefore,  be  superfluous ;  but,  as  it  does  occur 
to  me  while  I  write,  I  must  give  an  amusing  instance  how  the 
memory  of  a  good  thrashing  overcame  the  ruling  passion  of  a 
monkey,  which  is  gluttony,  the  first  and  only  instance  that  I 
ever  saw  it  cojucjucied, 

56 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

I  had  on  board  a  ship  which  I  commanded  a  very  large  Cape 
baboon,  who  was  a  pet  of  mine,  and  also  a  little  boy,  who  was 
a  son  of  mine.  When  the  baboon  sat  down  on  his  hams,  he 
was  about  as  tall  as  the  boy  was  when  he  walked.  The  boy 
having  a  tolerable  appetite,  received  about  noon  a  considerable 
slice  of  bread-and-butter,  to  keep  him  quiet  till  dinner-time. 
I  was  on  one  of  the  carronades,  busy  with  the  sun's  lower  limb, 
bringing  it  in  contact  with  the  horizon,  when  the  boy's  lower 
limbs  brought  him  in  contact  with  the  baboon,  who,  having,  as 
well  as  the  boy,  a  strong  predilection  for  bread-and-butter,  and 
a  stronger  arm  to  take  it  withal,  thought  proper  to  help  him- 
self to  that  to  which  the  boy  had  been  already  helped.  In 
short,  he  snatched  the  bread-and-butter,  and  made  short  work 
of  it,  for  it  was  in  his  pouch  in  a  moment.  Upon  which  the 
boy  set  up  a  yell,  which  attracted  my  notice  to  this  violation 
of  the  articles  of  war,  to  which  the  baboon  was  equally  amen- 
able as  any  other  person  in  the  ship  !  for  it  is  expressly  stated 
in  the  preamble  of  every  separate  article,  "All  who  are  in  or 
belonging  to."  Whereupon  I  jumped  off  the  carronade,  and 
by  way  of  assisting  his  digestion,  I  served  out  to  the  baboon 
monkey's  allowance,  which  is.  more  kicks  than  halfpence.  The 
master  reported  that  the  heavens  intimated  that  it  was  twelve 
o'clock  :  and  with  all  the  humility  of  a  captain  of  a  man-of- 
war,  I  ordered  him  to  "make  it  so  ;  "  whereupon  it  was  made, 
and  so  passed  that  day.  I  do  not  remember  how  many  days 
it  was  afterwards  that  I  was  on  the  carronade  as  usual,  about 
the  same  time,  and  all  parties  were  precisely  in  the  same 
situations, — the  master  by  my  side,  the  baboon  under  the 
booms,  and  the  boy  walking  out  of  the  cabin  with  his  bread- 
and-butter.  As  before,  he  again  passed  the  baboon,  who  again 
snatched  the  bread-and-butter  from  the  boy,  who  again  set  up 
a  squall,  which  again  attracted  my  attention.  I  looked  round, 
and  the  baboon  caught  my  eye,  which  told  him  plainly  that 
he'd  soon  catch  what  was  not  "at  all  ?»//  eve  ;  "  and  he  proved 
that  he  actually  thought  so,  for  he  actually  put  the  bread- 
and-butter  back  into  the  boy's  hands.  It  was  the  only  in- 
stance in  which  I  ever  knew  or  heard  of  a  monkey  being 
capable  of  self-denial  when  his  stomach  was  concerned, 
and  I  record  it  accordingly.  (Par  purenthese :)  it  is  well 
known  that  monkeys  will  take  the  small-pox,  measles,  and, 
I  believe,  the  scarlet  fever;  but  this  poor  fellow,  when 
67 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

the  ship's  company  were  dying  of  the  cholera,  took  that 
disease,  went  through  all  its  gradations,  and  died  apparently 
in  great  agony. 

As,  then,  invention  and  memory  are  both  common  to  in- 
stinct as  well  as  to  reason,  where  is  the  line  of  demarcation 
to  be  drawn  ;  especially  as,  in  the  case  of  the  elephants  I  have 
mentioned,  superior  instinct  will  invent  when  inferior  reason 
is  at  fault  ?  It  would  appear,  if  the  two  qualities  must  be  as- 
sociated, that,  at  all  events,  there  are  two  varieties  of  instinct: 
blind  instinct,  which  is  superior  to  reason,  so  far  that  it  never 
errs,  as  it  is  God  who  guides ;  and  inventive  instinct,  which 
enables  the  superior  animals  to  provide  for  unexpected  diffi- 
culties, or  to  meet  those  which  memory  has  impressed  upon 
them.  But  if  we  examine  ourselves,  the  difficulty  becomes 
even  greater — we  have  decidedly  two  separate  qualities.  We 
are  instinctive  as  well  as  reasonable  beings ;  and  what  is  in- 
ventive instinct  but  a  species  of  reason,  if  not  reason  itself? 

But  although  I  say  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  draw  the 
line  of  demarcation,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  they  are  one  and 
the  same  thing ;  for  instinct  and  reason,  if  we  are  to  judge  by 
ourselves,  are  in  direct  opposition.  Self-preservation  is  in- 
stinctive ;  all  the  pleasures  of  sense,  all  that  people  are  too 
apt  to  consider  as  happiness  in  this  world  ;  I  may  say,  all  that 
we  are  told  is  wrong,  all  that  our  reason  tells  us  we  are  not  to 
indulge  in,  is  instinct. 

Such  are  the  advantages  of  being  reasonable  beings  in  lids 
world ;  undoubtedly,  we  have  a  right  to  claim  for  ourselves, 
and  deny  to  the  rest  of  the  creation,  the  enjoyments  of  the 
next.  Byron  says, 

"  Man,  being  reasonable,  must  get  drank." 

That  is  to  say,  being  reasonable,  and  finding  his  reason  :» 
reason  for  being  unhappy,  he  gets  rid  of  his  reason  whenever 
he  can.  So  do  the  most  intellectual  animals.  The  elephant 
and  the  monkey  enjoy  their  bottle  as  much  as  we  do.  I 
should  have  been  more  inclined  to  agree  with  Byron,  if  he 
had  said, 

Man,  being  reasonable,  must  go  to  tlie  Jevil. 

For  what  are  poor  reasonable  creatures  to  do,  when  instinct 
leads  them  to  the  "  old  gentleman  "  ?  and  Reason,  let  her  tug 

58 


DIARY   ON  THE   CONTINENT 

as  hard  as  she  pleases,  is  not  sufficiently  powerful  to  overcome 
the  adverse  force. 

After  all,  I  don't  think  that  I  have  come  to  a  very  satis- 
factory conclusion.  Like  a  puppy  running  round  after  his 
own  tail,  I  am  just  where  I  was  when  I  set  out ;  but,  like  the 
puppy,  I  have  been  amused  for  the  time.  I  only  hope  the 
reader  will  have  been  so  too. 

And  now,  my  brethren,  I  proceed  to  the  second  part  of  my 
discourse,  which  is  to  defend  anglers  and  fly-fishers  from  the 
charge  of  cruelty. 

It  is  very  true  that  Shakspeare  says,  "  The  poor  beetle  that 
we  tread  on,  in  mortal  sufferance,  feels  a  pang  as  great  as 
when  a  giant  dies  ; "  and  it  is  equally  true  that  it  is  as  false 
as  it  is  poetical. 

There  is  a  scale  throughout  nature,  and  that  scale  has  been 
divided  by  unerring  justice.  Man  is  at  the  summit  of  this 
scale,  being  more  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made,  more 
perfect  than  any  other  of  the  creation,  more  perfect  in  his 
form,  more  perfect  in  his  intellect ;  he  is  finer  strung  in  his 
nerves,  acuter  in  his  sympathies  ;  he  has  more  susceptibility 
to  pleasure,  more  susceptibility  to  pain.  He  has  pleasures 
denied  to,  and  he  has  pains  not  shared  with  him  by  the  rest 
of  the  creation.  He  enjoys  most,  and  he  suffers  most.  From 
man,  the  scale  of  creation  descends,  and  in  its  descent,  as 
animals  are  less  and  less  perfect,  so  is  meted  out  equal  but 
smaller  proportions  of  pleasure  and  pain,  until  we  arrive  to  the 
Mollusca  and  Zoophyte,  beings  existing  certainly,  but  exist- 
ing without  pleasure  and  without  pain — existing  only  to  fill 
up  the  endless  variety,  and  add  the  links  to  the  chain  of 
nature  necessary  to  render  it  complete.  The  question  which 
naturally  will  be  put  is,  "  How  do  you  know  this  ?  it  is  asser- 
tion, but  not  proof."  But  arguments  are  always  commenced 
in  this  way.  The  assertion  is  the  quid,  the  est  demonstrandum 
always  comes  afterwards.  I  handle  my  nose,  flourish  my 
handkerchief,  and  proceed. 

Man  is  the  most  perfect  of  creation.  What  part  of  his 
body,  if  separated  from  the  rest,  can  he  renew  ?  No  part, 
except  the  hair  and  the  nail.  Reproduction  can  go  no  further. 
With  the  higher  classes  of  animals,  also,  there  is  no  repro- 
duction :  but  even  at  this  slight  descent  upon  the  scale,  we 
may  already  point  out  a  great  difference.  Although  there  is 
59 


OIL  A   FODRIDA 

no  reproduction,  still  there  are  decided  proofs  of  inferiority ; 
for  instance,  a  hare  or  rabbit  caught  in  a  trap,  will  struggle 
till  it  escapes,  with  the  loss  of  a  leg ;  a  fox  which  is  carni- 
vorous, will  do  more ;  he  will  gnaw  off  his  own  leg  to  escape. 
Do  they  die  in  consequence  ?  No,  they  live  and  do  well ;  but 
could  a  man  live  under  such  circumstances  ?  Impossible.  If 
you  don't  believe  me,  gnaw  your  own  leg  off  and  try.  And 
yet  the  conformation  of  the  Mammalia  is  not  very  dissimilar 
from  our  own;  but  man  is  the  more  perfect  creature,  and 
therefore  has  not  the  same  resources. 

I  have  hitherto  referred  only  to  the  limbs  of  animals  ;  I  will 
now  go  further.  I  had  a  beautiful  little  monkey  on  board  my 
ship.  By  accident  it  was  crushed,  and  received  such  injury 
that  the  backbone  was  divided  at  the  loins,  and  the  vertebrae 
of  the  upper  part  protruded  an  inch  outside  of  its  skin.  Such 
an  accident  in  a  man  would  have  produced  immediate  death  ; 
but  the  monkey  did  not  die ;  its  lower  limbs  were  of  course 
paralysed.  The  vertebra  which  protruded  gradually  rotted 
off,  and  in  six  weeks  the  animal  was  crawling  about  the  deck 
with  its  fore  feet.  It  was,  however,  such  a  pitiable  object, 
that  I  ordered  it  to  be  drowned.  Now,  if  we  descend  lower 
down  in  the  scale  until  we  come  to  the  reptiles  and  insects, 
we  shall  find  not  only  that  the  loss  of  limbs  is  not  attended 
with  death,  but  that  the  members  are  reproduced.  Let  any 
one  take  a  spider  by  its  legs  ;  it  will  leave  them  in  your  hands 
that  it  may  escape.  Confine  the  animal  under  a  glass,  and  in 
a  few  weeks  it  will  have  all  its  members  perfect  as  before. 
Lizards  are  still  more  peculiar  in  their  reproduction.  I  was 
at  Madeira  for  many  months,  and  often  caught  the  lizards 
which  played  about  the  walls  and  roofs  of  the  outhouses  ;  and 
if  ever  I  caught  a  lizard  by  the  tail,  he  would  make  a  spring, 
and  leave  his  tail  in  my  hand,  which  seemed  to  snap  off  as 
easily  as  would  a  small  carrot.  Now  the  tail  of  the  lizard  is 
longer  than  its  body,  and  a  continuation  of  the  vertebrae  of  the 
back.  I  soon  found  out  that  lizards  did  not  die  from  this 
extensive  loss,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  their  tails  grew  again. 
Even  the  first  week  afterwards,  a  little  end  began  to  show 
itself,  and  in  about  two  months  the  animal  had  reproduced 
the  whole.  What  I  am  about  to  say  now  will  probably  be 
considered  by  some  as  incredible ;  they  are,  however,  at  full 
liberty  to  disbelieve  it.  One  day'I  was  looking  out  of  the 
60 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

window  with  the  late  Tom  Sheridan,  who  lived  in  the  same 
house,  and  we  observed  on  the  roof  of  the  outhouse  a  lizard 
with  two  tails,  but  neither  of  them  full  grown ;  and  we 
argued  that,  at  the  time  the  animal  lost  his  tail,  he  must 
have  suffered  some  division  of  the  stump.  Being  at  that 
time  a  naturalist,  i.e.,  very  cruel,  I  immediately  caught  a 
lizard,  pulled  off  his  tail,  notched  the  vertebrae,  and  turned 
him  loose  again.  Our  conjectures  were  right ;  the  animal  iu 
two  or  three  weeks  had  two  tails  growing  out  like  the  one 
we  had  seen.  I  repeated  this  experiment  several  times,  and 
it  always  appeared  to  succeed ;  and  all  the  two-tailed  lizards 
were  called  mine. 

Now  this  power  of  reproduction  increases  as  you  descend 
the  scale  ;  as  an  instance,  take  the  polypus,  which  is  as  near 
as  possible  at  the  bottom  of  it.  If  you  cut  a  polypus  into 
twenty  pieces,  without  any  regard  to  division,  in  a  short  time 
you  will  have  twenty  perfect  polypi. 

Now  the  deductions  I  would  draw  from  these  remarks  are — 

That  the  most  perfect  animals  are  least  capable  of  repro- 
duction, and  most  sensible  of  pain. 

That  as  the  scale  of  nature  descends,  animals  become  less 
perfect,  and  more  capable  of  reproduction. 

Ergo — they  cannot  possibly  feel  the  same  pain  as  the 
more  perfect. 

Now  with  respect  to  fish,  they  are  very  inferior  in  the 
scale  of  creation,  being,  with  the  exception  of  the  cetaceous 
tribe,  which  class  with  the  Mammalia,  all  cold-blooded 
animals,  and  much  less  perfect  than  reptiles  or  many  insects. 
The  nervous  system  is  the  real  seat  of  all  pain  ;  and  the  more 
perfect  the  animal,  the  more  complicated  is  that  system  ; 
with  cold-blooded  animals,  the  nervous  organisation  is  next 
to  nothing.  Most  fish,  if  they  disengage  themselves  from  the 
hook,  will  take  the  bait  again ;  and  if  they  do  not,  it  is  not 
on  account  of  the  pain,  but  because  their  instinct  tells  them 
there  is  danger.  Moreover,  it  is  very  true,  as  Sir  H.  Davy 
observes,  that  fish  are  not  killed  by  the  hook,  but  by  the 
hooks  closing  their  mouths  and  producing  suffocation.  How, 
indeed,  would  it  otherwise  be  possible  to  land  a  salmon  of 
thirty  pounds  weight,  in  all  its  strength  and  vigour,  with  a 
piece  of  gut  not  thicker  than  three  or  four  hairs  "* 

Upon  the  same  grounds  that  I  argue  that  fish  feel  very 
61 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

little  comparative  pain,  so  do  I  that  the  worm,  which  is  so 
low  in  the  scale  of  creation,  does  not  suffer  as  supposed.  Its 
writhings  and  twistings  on  the  hook  are  efforts  to  escape 
natural  to  the  form  of  the  animal,  and  can  be  considered  as 
little  or  nothing  more.  At  the  same  time  I  acknowledge, 
and,  indeed,  prove,  by  my  own  arguments,  that  it  is  very 
cruel  to  bob  for  whale. 

To  suppose  there  are  no  gradations  of  feeling  as  well  as  of 
perfection  in  the  animal  kingdom,  would  not  only  be  arguing 
against  all  analogy,  but  against  the  justice  and  mercy  of  the 
Almighty,  who  does  not  allow  a  sparrow  to  fall  to  the  earth 
without  His  knowledge.  He  gave  all  living  things  for  our 
use  and  our  sustenance  ;  He  gave  us  intellect  to  enable  us  to 
capture  them  ;  to  suppose,  therefore,  at  the  same  time,  that 
He  endowed  them  with  so  fine  a  nervous  organisation  as  to 
make  them  undergo  severe  tortures  previous  to  death,  is 
supposing  what  is  contrary  to  that  goodness  and  mercy 
which,  as  shown  towards  us,  we  are  ready  to  acknowledge 
and  adore. 

I  cannot  finish  this  subject  without  making  a  remark  upon 
creation  and  its  perfectibility.  All  respectable  animals,  from 
man  down  to  a  certain  point  in  the  scale,  have  their  lice  or 
parasites  to  feed  upon  them.  Some  wit,  to  exemplify  this 
preying  upon  one  another,  wrote  the  following : — 

"  Great  fleas  have  little  fleas, 

And  less  fleas  to  bite  them, 
These  fleas  have  lesser  fleas, 
And  so — ad  infinitum." 

This,  however,  is  not  strictly  true.  Parasites  attach  them- 
selves only  to  the  great.  Upon  those  they  can  fatten.  Having 
your  blood  sucked  is,  therefore,  a  great  proof  of  high  heraldry 
and  perfectibility  in  the  scale  of  creation.  If  animals  were 
endowed  with  speech  and  pride  like  man,  we  might  imagine 
one  creature  boasting  to  another,  as  a  proof  of  his  importance, 

"  And  I,  too,  also  have  my  louse  1 1 " 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

CHAPTER  XV 

_  LIEGE,  May  30th. 

\\  HAT  strange  meetings  take  place  sometimes  !  I  recollect 
once,  when  I  was  sitting  at  a  table  d'hote  at  Zurich,  being 
accosted  by  a  lady  next  to  me,  and  being  accused  of  having 
forgotten  her.  1  looked  with  all  my  eyes,  but  could  not  dis- 
cover that  I  had  ever  seen  her  before.  At  last,  after  allowing 
me  to  puzzle  for  some  time,  she  said :  "  Sir,  you  and  I  met  at 
dinner  four  years  ago,  at  Mr.  R —  — 's  house  in  Denierara." 
It  was  very  true  ;  but  who  would  have  thought  of  running  his 
memory  over  to  South  America,  to  a  cursed  alluvial  deposit, 
hatching  monthly  bi'oods  of  alligators,  and  surrounded  by 
naked  slaves,  whilst  out  of  the  window  before  him,  his  eye 
rested  upon  the  snow-covered  mountains  of  Switzerland,  and 
he  breathed  the  pure  air  of  William  Tell  and  liberty.  This 
morning  I  fell  in  with  an  acquaintance  whom  I  had  not  seen 
for  years,  and  him  also  I  did  not  recollect.  I  am  very  unfor- 
tunate in  that  respect,  and  I  am  afraid  that  I  have  very 
often  given  offence  without  intending  it  ;  but  so  imperfect 
is  my  memory  of  faces,  that  I  have  danced  with  a  lady  in 
the  evening  and  the  next  day  have  not  known  her, 
because  she  was  in  a  bonnet  and  morning  dress.  Some- 
times the  shifts  I  am  put  to  are  quite  ludicrous,  asking  all 
manner  of  questions,  and  answering  those  put  to  me  at 
random,  to  find  out  some  clue  as  to  who  my  very  intimate 
friend  may  be.  They  ought  not  to  be  angry  at  my  forgetting 
their  names,  for  sometimes,  for  a  few  minutes,  I  have 
actually  forgotten  my  own.  It  does,  however,  only  require 
one  clue  to  be  given  me,  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  I 
recollect  everything  connected  with  the  party.  I  remember 
one  day,  as  I  was  passing  Whitehall,  somebody  came  up, 
wrung  my  hand  with  apparent  delight,  aad  professed  him- 
self delighted  to  see  me.  I  could  do  no  other  than  say 
the  same,  but  who  he  was,  and  where  I  had  seen  him 
before,  was  a  mystery.  "  I  am  married  since  we  parted," 
said  he,  '-'and  have  a  fine  little  boy."  I  congratulated  him 
with  all  my  heart.  "  You  must  come  and  see  me,  and  I  will 
introduce  you  to  Mary." 

"Nothing  would  give  me  more  pleasure;"  but  if  he  had 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

only  called  his  wife  Mrs.  So-and-so,  I  should  have  a  clue. 
"  Let  me  see,"  said  I,  "  where  was  it  we  pai-ted  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  recollect?"  said  he.  "At  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope." 

But  I  was  still  mystified,  and  after  putting  several  leading 
questions,  I  found  myself  quite  as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever. 
At  last  I  asked  him  for  his  card,  that  I  might  call  upon  him. 
He  had  not  one  in  his  pocket.  I  pulled  out  my  tablets,  and 
he  took  out  the  pencil,  and  wrote  down  his  address ;  but  that 
was  of  no  use  to  me. 

"Stop,  my  good  fellow,  I  have  so  many  addresses  down 
there,  that  I  shall  be  making  some  mistake  ;  put  your  name 
down  above  it." 

He  did  so,  and  when  I  saw  the  name,  everything  came  fast 
like  a  torrent  into  my  recollection  ;  we  had  been  very  intimate, 
and  he  was  fully  justified  in  showing  so  much  warmth.  I 
could  then  talk  to  him  about  old  scenes,  and  old  acquaintances; 
so  I  took  his  arm,  and  went  forthwith  to  be  introduced  to  his 
Mary.  The  knowledge  of  this  unfortunate  failing  makes  me 
peculiarly  careful  not  to  avoid  a  person  who  appears  to  know 
me ;  and  one  day  a  very  absurd  scene  took  place.  I  was 
standing  on  some  doorsteps  close  to  the  Admiralty,  waiting 
for  a  friend,  and  there  was  another  gentleman  standing  close 
to  me,  on  the  pavement.  A  third  party  came  up,  extending 
his  hand,  and  I  immediately  took  it,  and  shook  it  warmly, — 
although  who  my  friend  was,  I  was,  as  usual,  very  much 
puzzled  to  find  out.  Now  it  so  happened  that  the  hand  which 
I  had  taken  was  extended  to  the  gentleman  standing  by  me, 
and  not  to  me  ;  and  the  party  whose  hand  1  was  squeezing, 
looked  me  in  the  face  and  laughed.  I  did  the  same,  and  he 
then  gave  his  hand  to  the  right  party,  and  walked  off.  As, 
however,  we  had  said,  "  How  d'ye  do  ?  "  we  had  the  politeness 
to  say,  "Good-bye;"  both  taking  off  our  hats  on  the  broad 
grin. 

I  was  observing  that  I  here  met  with  a  person  whom  I 
could  not  recollect,  and,  as  usual,  I  continued  to  talk  with 
him,  trusting  to  my  good  fortune  for  the  clue.  At  last  it  was 
given  me.  "  Do  you  recollect  the  little  doctor  and  his  wife 
at  Bangalore  ?  "  I  did,  and  immediately  recollected  him. 
As  the  story  of  the  doctor  and  his  wife  has  often  made  me 
laugh,  and  as  I  consider  it  one  of  the  best  specimens  of  iitjor 
64 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

tat,  I  will  narrate  it  to  my  readers.     I  have  since  been  told 
that  it  is  not  new — I  must  tell  it,  nevertheless. 

A  certain  little  army  surgeon,  who  was  stationed  at  Ban- 
galore, had  selected  a  very  pretty  little  girl  out  of  an  invoice 
of  young  ladies  who  had  been  freighted  out  on  speculation. 
She  was  very  fond  of  gaiety  and  amusement,  and,  after  her 
marriage,  appeared  to  be  much  fonder  of  passing  away  the 
night  at  a  ball  than  in  the  arms  of  her  little  doctor.  Never- 
theless, although  she  kept  late  hours,  in  every  respect  she 
was  very  correct.  The  doctor,  who  was  a  quiet,  sober  man, 
and  careful  of  his  health,  preferred  going  to  bed  early,  and 
rising  before  the  sun,  to  inhale  the  cool  breeze  of  the  morn- 
ing. And  as  the  lady  seldom  came  home  till  past  midnight, 
he  was  not  very  well  pleased  at  being  disturbed  by  her  late 
hours.  At  last,  his  patience  was  wearied  out,  and  he  told 
her  plainly,  that  if  she  stayed  out  later  than  twelve  o'clock, 
he  was  resolved  not  to  give  her  admittance.  At  this,  his 
young  wife,  who,  like  all  pretty  women,  imagined  that  he 
never  would  presume  to  do  any  such  thing,  laughed  heartily, 
and  from  the  next  ball  to  which  she  was  invited,  did  not 
return  till  half-past  two  in  the  morning.  As  soon  as  she 
arrived,  the  palanquin-bearers  knocked  for  admittance  ;  but 
the  doctor,  true  to  his  word,  put  his  head  out  of  the  window, 
and  very  ungallantly  told  his  wife  she  might  remain  all  night. 
The  lady  coaxed,  entreated,  expostulated,  and  threatened  ; 
but  it  was  all  in  vain.  At  last  she  screamed  and  appeared  to 
be  frantic,  declaring  that  if  not  immediately  admitted,  she 
would  throw  herself  into  the  well,  which  was  in  the  com- 
pound, not  fifty  yards  from  the  bungalow.  The  doctor  begged 
that  she  would  do  so,  if  that  gave  her  any  pleasure,  and  then 
retired  from  the  window.  His  wife  ordered  the  bearers  to 
take  her  on  her  palanquin  to  the  well  ;  she  get  out,  and  gave 
her  directions,  and  then  slipped  away  up  to  the  bungalow, 
and  stationed  herself  close  to  the  door,  agaiust  the  wall.  The 
bearers,  in  obedience  to  her  directions,  commenced  crying 
out,  as  if  expostulating  with  their  mistress,  and  then  detach- 
ing a  large  and  heavy  stone,  two  of  them  plunged  it  into  the 
water  ;  after  which,  they  all  set  up  a  howl  of  lamentation. 
Now,  the  little  doctor,  notwithstanding  all  his  firmness  and 
nonchalance,  was  not  quite  at  ease  when  he  heard  his  wife 
express  her  determination.  He  knew  her  to  be  vcrv  entct&e, 
65  E 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

and  he  remained  on  the  watch.  He  heard  the  heavy  plunge, 
followed  up  by  the  shrieks  of  the  palanquin-bearers.  "  Good 
God,"  cried  he,  "is  it  possible?"  and  he  darted ,  out  in  his 
shirt  to  where  they  were  all  standing  by  the  well.  As  soon  as 
he  had  passed,  his  wife  hastened  indoors,  locked,  and  made 
all  fast,  and  shortly  afterwards  appeared  at  the  window  from 
which  her  husband  had  addressed  her.  The  doctor  dis- 
covered the  ruse  when  it  was  too  late.  It  was  now  his  turn 
to  expostulate  ;  but  how  could  he  "  hope  for  mercy,  rendering 
none  ?  "  The  lady  was  laconic  and  decided.  "  At  least, 
then,  throw  me  my  clothes,"  said  the  doctor.  "  Not  even 
your  slippers,  to  protect  you  from  the  scorpions  and  centi- 
pedes," replied  the  lady,  shutting  the  "jalousie."  At  day- 
light, when  the  officers  were  riding  their  Arabians,  they 
discovered  the  poor  little  doctor  pacing  the  verandah  up  and 
down  in  the  chill  of  the  morning,  with  nothing  but  his  shirt 
to  protect  him.  Thus  were  the  tables  turned,  but  whether 
this  ruse  of  the  well  ended  well, — whether  the  lady  reformed, 
or  the  doctor  conformed, — I  have  never  since  heard. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

LlteGE,  June  2. 

J.HE  academy  or  college  established  at  Liege  in  1817  is 
very  creditable  to  the  Liegeois.  Much  has  been  done  in 
fifteen  years :  the  philosophical  apparatus,  collections  of 
minerals  and  natural  history,  are  all  excellent  for  instruction, 
although  the  minerals  are  not  very  valuable.  The  fossils 
found  in  the  Ardennes  are  very  interesting,  and  ought  to  be 
a  mine  of  wealth  to  the  Liegeois,  as  by  exchanging  them 
they  might  soon  have  a  valuable  collection.  It  is  a  pity  that 
the  various  museums  of  Europe  do  not  print  catalogues,  not 
of  their  own  collections  only,  but  also  of  the  duplicates  which 
they  can  part  with,  so  that  they  may  be  circulated,  not  only 
among  the  national  collections,  but  also  among  private 
cabinets  ;  by  so  doing  they  would  all  become  more  perfect. 
It  is  currently  reported  that  more  duplicates  have  been 
allowed  to  perish  in  the  cellars  of  the  British  Museum  than 
would  have  furnished  all  the  cabinets  in  Europe.  It  may  be 
replied,  that  other  cabinets  had  nothing  to  offer  in  exchange ; 
66 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

but  that  is  only  a  surmise  :  and  even  if  they  had  not,  they 
should  have  been  presented  to  other  institutions  abroad. 
Science  ought  not  to  be  confined  to  country  or  people  .-  it 
should  be  considered  as  universal. 

To  the  college  is  annexed  a  botanical  garden.  There  is 
nothing  I  dislike  more  than  a  botanical  garden.  I  ac- 
knowledge the  advantages,  perhaps  the  necessity,  of  such 
institutions ;  but  they  always  appear  to  me  as  if  there  was 
disarrangement  instead  of  arrangement.  What  may  be  called 
order  and  classification  seems  to  me  to  be  disorder  and  con- 
fusion. It  may  be  very  well  to  class  plants  and  trees  for 
study,  but  certainly  their  families,  although  joined  by  man, 
were  never  intended  to  be  united  by  God.  Such  a  mixture 
in  one  partition,  of  trees,  and  shrubs,  and  creeping  plants,  all 
of  which  you  are  gravely  told  are  of  one  family.  I  never  will 
believe  it ;  it  is  unnatural.  I  can  see  order  and  arrangement 
when  I  look  at  the  majestic  forest  trees,  throwing  about  their 
wild  branches,  and  defying  the  winds  of  heaven,  while  they 
afford  shelter  to  the  shrubs  beneath,  which  in  their  turn  pro- 
tect and  shelter  the  violets  that  perfume  all  around.  This 
is  beautiful  and  natural — it  is  harmony  ;  but  in  a  botanical 
garden  everything  is  out  of  its  place.  The  Scripture  says, 
"Those  whom  God  hath  joined,  let  no  man  put  asunder;" 
may  we  not  add,  Those  whom  God  has  sundered,  let  no 
man  presume  to  join.  I  felt  as  I  looked  at  the  botanical 
garden  as  if  it  were  presumptuous  and  almost  wicked, 
and  as  it  was  on  the  banks  of  the  Meuse,  I  sat  down 
on  the  wall  and  recovered  myself  by  looking  at  the  flow- 
ing river,  and  thinking  about  utility  and  futility,  "  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing  and  everything  else  in  the  world,"  as 
poor  Matthews  used  to  say, — and  there  I  sat  for  an  hour, 
until  my  thoughts  revolved  on  the  propriety  of  going  back 
and  eating  my  dinner,— as  Mrs.  Trollope  used  to  do  when 
she  was  in  Belgium. 

As  I  was  walking  about  in  the  evening,  l  perceived  a  dirty 
little  alley  illuminated  with  chandeliers  and  wax  candles. 
There  must  be  a  ball,  thought  I,  or  some  gaiety  going  on  ; 
let  us  inquire.  "  No,  sir,"  replied  a  man  to  whom  I  put 
the  question,  "  it's  not  a  ball, — it  is  a  monsieur  who  has 
presented  to  an  image  of  the  Virgin  Mary  which  is  up  that 
court,  a  petticoat,  which,  they  say,  is  worth  one  thousand 
67 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

five  hundred  francs,  and  this  lighting-tip  is  in  honour  of  her 
putting  it  on."  The  race  of  fools  is  not  extinct,  thought 
I.  I  wonder  whether,  like  King  Ferdinand,  he  worked  it 
himself.  Belgium  is  certainly  at  this  present  the  stronghold 
of  superstition. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

June  3. 

YV  ENT  to  Harquet's  manufactory  of  arms,  ana  was  much 
amused.  They  export  all  over  the  world,  and  the  varieties 
they  make  up  for  the  different  markets  are  astonishing. 
They  were  then  very  busy  completing  an  order  for  several 
thousand  muskets  for  the  Belgian  troops,  which  load  at  the 
breech  and  fire  off  without  locks  or  priming.  They  showed 
me  a  fowling-piece  on  the  same  principle,  which  they  fired 
off  under  water.  But  the  low  prices  of  the  arms  astonished 
me.  There  were  a  large  quantity  of  very  long  fowling- 
pieces,  with  the  maker  s  name  at  Constantinople,  for  the 
Turkish  gentlemen,  at  thirty  francs  each ;  a  common  musket 
was  fourteen  francs.  I  perceived  in  a  corner  a  large  number 
of  muskets  of  infamous  workmanship,  and  with  locks  re- 
sembling those  awkward  attempts  made  two  hundred  years 
back.  I  asked  what  they  were  for.  They  were  for  the 
South  American  market,  and  made  to  order,  for  the  people 
there  would  use  no  others :  any  improvement  was  eschewed 
by  them.  I  presumed  they  had  borrowed  one  of  the 
Spanish  muskets  brought  over  by  Pizarro  as  a  model, 
but,  at  all  events,  they  were  very  cheap,  only  eight  francs 
each.  Gold  help  us,  how  cheaply  men  can  be  killed  now- 
adays ! 

It  is  very  seldom  that  you  now  meet  with  a  name  beginning 
with  an  X,  but  one  caught  my  eye  as  I  was  walking  through 
the  streets  here.  Urban  Xhenemont,  negociant.  I  perceive  there 
are  still  some  to  be  found  in  Greece  ;  the  only  one  I  know  of 
in  England  is  that  of  Sir  Morris  Ximenes,  who,  I  presume, 
claims  descent  from  the  celebrated  cardinal.  The  mention  of 
that  name  reminds  me  of  the  songs  of  the  improvisatore, 
Theodore  Hook,  and  his  address  in  finding  a  rhyme  for  such 
an  awkward  name  as  Ximenes.  Few  possess  the  talent  of 
68 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

improvising.  In  Italy  it  is  more  common,  because  the  Italian 
language  admits  the  rhyme  with  so  much  facility  ;  but  a  good 
improvisatore  is  rare  even  in  that  country.  There  was  a  Dutch- 
man who  was  a  very  good  improvisatore,  a  poor  fellow  who 
went  about  to  amuse  companies  with  his  singing  and  this  pecu- 
liar talent.  One  day  a  gentleman  dropped  a  gold  Guillaume 
into  a  glass  of  Burgundy,,  and  told  him  if  he  would  make  a 
good  impromptu,  he  should  have  both  the  wine  and  the  gold  • 
without  hesitation  he  took  up  the  glass,  and  suiting  the  action 
to  the  word,  sang  as  follows  : — 

"  Twee  Goden  in  een  Glas, 
Wat  zal  ik  van  maken  ? 
K'  steek  Plutus  in  myn  tas, 
K  slaak  Bacchus  in  myn  Kaken." 

Which  may  be  rendered  into  French  as  follows : — 

"  Quoi !  deux  dieux  dans  un  verre, 
Eh  bien  !  que  vais-j'en  faire  1 
J'empocherai  Plutus, 
J'avalerai  Bacchus." 

The  gentleman  who  gave  me  this  translation,  also  furnished 
me  with  a  copy  of  extempore  French  verses,  given  by  a  gentle- 
man of  Maastricht,  who  was  celebrated  as  an  improvisatore. 
They  certainly  are  very  superior.  He  was  at  a  large  party, 
and  agreed  to  improvise  upon  any  theme  given  him  bv  five 
of  those  present  in  the  way  of  Souvenir.  The  first  person 
requested  the  souvenir  of  early  youth. 

"  Vous  souvient-il  ?     Amis  de  ma  jeunesse 
Des  beaux  momens  de  nos  fougueux  exploits  1 
Quand  la  raison  sous  le  joug  de  1'ivresse 
Essaye  en  vain  de  soutenir  ses  droits. 
Ce  terns  n'est  plus,  cet  fige  de  folie, 
Ou  tout  en  nous  est  presse  de  jouir  ; 
Mes  bons  amis,  de  printemps  de  la  vie 
Gardens  toujours  le  joyeux  souvenir." 

The  next  party  requested  a  souvenir  of  the  conscription, 
69 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

many  of  them,  as  well  as  the  poet,  having  been  forced  into 
the  army  of  France. 

"  Vous  souvient-il  ?  qne  plus  tard,  sous  les  armes 
Plusieurs  de  nous,  de"signe"s  par  le  sort, 
Loin  des  parents  ;  versant  d'ameres  larmes, 
Allaient  trouver  ou  la  gloire  ou  la  mort. 
Ces  jours  de  deuil  par  milliers  dans  1'histoire 
Ne  viendront  plus,  sur  nous  s'appesantir. 
Amis,  volons  au  temple  de  Mdmoire, 
Effagons-en  le  sanglant  souvenir." 

The  third  party  requested  a  souvenir  of  his  "  first  love." 

"  Vous  souvient-il  ?  de  cet  enfant  de  Guide, 
Fripon  rusd,  volage  et  se'ducteur, 
Qui  par  les  yeux  d'une  beaut<5  timide, 
D'un  trait  de  feu  veut  nous  f  rapper  au  cosur. 
Du  sentiment  que  sa  fleche  fit  naltre, 
Et  que  la  mort  peut  seul  aneantir, 
Eternissons  le  ravissant  bieut-etre, 
En  conservant  un  si  beau  souvenir." 

The  fourth  proposed  as  a  theme  the  morning  of  his  mar 
riage. 

"Vous  souvient  il  ?  du  jour  ou  I'hymcnde 
Vint  nous  dieter  ses  dternelles  loix, 
En  attachant  a  notre  destinee 
L'objet  sacrd  de  notre  premier  choix. 
Solennite"  qui  par  des  voaux  nous  lie, 
De  saints  devoirs  chargeant  notre  avcnir, 
Solennitd  que  le  vulgaire  oublie, 
Nous  te  gardens  en  pieux  souvenir. " 

The  last  party  desired  him  to  wind  up  v;ii\\  friendship. 

"  Quel  souvenir  puis-je  chanter  encore, 
Apres  celui  nd  dans  la  volupte  ? 
II  en  est  un  que  le  terns  corrobore, 
C'est  le  premier  e"lau  de  1'amitie. 
Eh  1  qui  de  nous  u'a  pas  dans  ca  jeunesse, 
Livre  son  cceur  a  ses  charmes  puissants? 
Sainte  Amitie,  jusqu'li  dans  la  vieillesse, 
Console  nous  des  ravages  du  terns." 
70 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

I  should  imagine  that  after  the  gentleman  had  finished  all 
this,  he  must  have  been  pretty  well  out  of  breath. 

About  four  miles  from  Liege  is  the  celebrated  manu- 
factory of  Seraing,  belonging  to  Messrs.  Cockerell.  It 
is  beautifully  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Meuse,  and 
was  formerly  the  summer  palace  of  the  Prince  Archbishop. 
But  it  is  not  only  here  that  you  observe  those  symptoms 
of  the  times^all  over  France  you  will  perceive  the 
same,  and  the  major  portion  of  the  manufactories  have 
the  arms  of  princes  or  nobles  emblazoned  over  the  facade, 
while  the  interiors,  which  once  were  the  abode  of  re- 
finement and  luxury,  are  now  tenanted  by  artisans,  and 
appropriated  to  utility.  The  utilitarian  system  was,  how- 
ever, more  fully  exemplified  before  the  Belgian  revolu- 
tion, for  William  of  Nassau  was,  in  fact,  a  partner  of 
Mr.  Cockerell.  Mr.  Cockerell,  the  father,  who  is  now 
dead,  came  over  from  England  before  the  peace,  bringing 
with  him  either  the  machinery  for  spinning  cotton,  or  the 
knowledge  necessary  for  its  construction,  so  jealously  guarded 
by  our  manufacturers.  He  established  himself  at  Liege, 
and  soon  gained  patrons.  The  firm  has  now  three  or  four 
manufactories  at  Liege  besides  the  one  at  Seraing.  Large 
as  was  the  bishop's  palace,  it  has  been  increased  to  about 
three  times  its  original  size ;  it  reminds  me  more  of  Ports- 
mouth yard  than  any  other  place.  The  number  of  workmen 
employed  in  this  manufactory  alone  is  between  fourteen  and 
fifteen  hundred.  They  make  every  variety  of  steam-engines, 
and  not  only  supply  this  country,  but  Prussia,  Austria, 
France,  and  even  Russia.  People  talk  of  Mr.  Cockerell 
having  done  much  mischief  to  his  country  by  furnishing 
foreigners  with  machinery  which  enabled  us  to  undersell 
them.  I  doubt  it  very  much  ;  I  consider  that  the  sooner 
other  countries  are  enabled  to  compete  with  us  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  the  better  it  will  be  for  England.  At  present 
we  are  in  an  unhealthy  state,  and  chiefly  arising  from 
the  unlimited  use  of  machinery.  Let  us  lose  that  advan- 
tage, and,  if  not  richer,  at  all  events  we  shall  be  much 
happier.  We  are  now  suffering  under  a  plethora  of  capital, 
at  the  same  time  that  we  are  oppressed  with  debt.  As 
for  Mr.  Cockerell,  it  may  be  very  well  to  cry  out  about 
patriotism,  but  the  question  is,  would  not  every  other  man 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

have  done  the  same  ?  Had  he  not  a  right  to  bring  his  talents 
to  the  best  market  ?  and  before  he  is  accused  of  having  had 
no  regard  for  his  country,  it  may  be  fairly  asked,  what  regard 
had  his  country  shown  for  him  ? 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SPA,  June  10. 

-H.ERE  we  are,  and  for  a  time  at  rest.  Rest !  no,  the  wheels 
of  the  carriage  may  rest,  even  the  body  for  a  time  may  rest, 
but  the  mind  will  not.  We  carry  our  restlessness  with  us 
wherever  we  go.  Like  a  steam-engine,  the  mind  works,  and 
works,  and  works,  sometimes,  indeed,  with  less  rapidity  of 
motion,  but  still  it  goes  on,  goes  on  in  its  ever-continued  labour; 
waking  or  sleeping,  no  repose  ;  until  the  body,  which  is  the 
mechanical  part  of  the  engine,  is  worn  out  by  constant  friction, 
or  the  steam  of  the  mind  is  exhausted.  And  people  tell  you, 
and  believe,  that  there  is  rest  in  the  grave.  How  can  that 
be  ?  The  soul  is  immortal  and  cannot  exist  without  conscious- 
ness. If  not  conscious,  it  does  not  exist ;  and,  if  conscious, 
it  must  work  on,  even  beyond  the  grave,  and  for  ever.  To 
assert  that  there  is  rest  in  the  grave,  is  denying  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.  And  what  a  contemptible  base  slave  the 
body  is  to  the  soul.  I  was  going  to  say  that  he  could  not 
call  his  soul  his  own  ;  but  that  would  be  a  Catachresis,  and  I 
hate  and  abominate  everything  which  begins  with  cat.  It 
is  singular  that  they  are  all  unpleasant,  or  unlucky,  or  unsafe  , 
for  instance — 


Cat-acombs  remind  you  of  death,  funerals,  and  mummies. 


Cat-alogue 

Gat-aplastu 

Cat-aract 

Cat-arrh 

Cat-echism 

Cat-egorical 

Cat-erpillars 

Cat-erwaul 

Cat-gut 

Cat's-paw 


sale  of  effects,  some  poor  devil  done  up. 
a  boil  poulticed. 

sore  eyes,  Sam  Patcli,  and  devastation, 
head  stuffed,  running  of  the  glands, 
equally  unpleasant  in  youth  and  marriage, 
argument,  which  is  detestable, 
beasts  who  foul  nature, 
horrid  variety  of  love, 
street  music,  hnrdy-crurdy. 
a  calm,  with  a  prize  in  sight. 
72 


DIARY   ON   THE  CONTINENT 

As  for  a  cat  itself,  I  cannot  say  too  much  against  it ;  and  it  is 
singular  that  the  other  meanings  of  the  single  word  are  equally 
disagreeable ;  as  to  cat  the  anchor  is  a  sign  of  going  to  sea, 
and  the  cat  at  the  gangway  is  the  worst  of  all. 

Five  o'clock  in  the  morning, — the  sun  has  not  yet  appeared 
above  the  hills,  but  the  mist  is  rising  gradually.  The  bell  of 
the  church  in  front  of  my  window  is  tolling ; — it  ceases,  and 
the  pealing  of  the  organ,  with  the  chanting  of  the  priests, 
comes  distinct  and  clear  upon  my  ear,  as  the  notes  of  the 
bugle  over  the  still  water,  from  some  dashing  frigate  in  the 
Sound,  beating  off'  at  sunset.  How  solemn  and  how  beautiful 
is  the  early  prayer  !  The  sun  is  rising,  the  mists  of  the  night 
are  rolling  off,  and  the  voices  and  music  resound  at  the  same 
time  to  heaven.  The  church  is  full,  and  many  remain  outside, 
uncovered,  and  kneeling  in  humility.  But  who  comes  here, 
thought  I,  as  a  man  in  a  shabby  coat  walked  to  within  a  few 
yards  of  the  church  door,  and  laid  down  his  burden,  consist- 
ing of  a  drum,  a  fiddle,  a  roll  of  canvas,  a,  chair,  and  a  long 
pole.  This  is  a  curious  stock-in-trade,  methinks  !  how,  in  the 
name  of  all  the  saints,  do  you  gain  your  livelihood  ?  This 
was  soon  ascertained.  A  minute  before  the  mass  was  over, 
he  fixed  his  pole  upright  in  the  ground,  hung  his  canvas  on 
it,  and  unrolled  it,  displaying  a  picture  divided  in  six  com- 
partments. He  then  hung  his  fiddle  to  his  button,  took  his 
drum,  and  putting  his  chair  close  to  his  pole,  stood  upon  it, 
giving  a  long,  but  not  loud,  roll  of  his  drum,  which  he 
repeated  at  intervals,  to  attract  attention.  He  had  tuk<  n 
his  station  with  judgment;  and  as  the  people  came  out  of 
church,  he  had  soon  a  crowd  about  him,  when  he  commenced 
with  crossing  himself,  and  then  continued  to  explain  the 
legend  which  was  attached  to  his  picture  on  the  canvas.  I 
could  not  hear  all,  but  still  I  could  understand  enough  to 
fill  up  the  rest.  It  was  the  wonderful  cure  performed  by  a 
certain  saint ;  and  as  he  told  the  story,  he  pointed  to  the 
different  compartments  with  his  fiddlestick,  for  he  had  laid 
aside  his  drum  as  soon  as  he  had  collected  an  audience.  Now 
and  then  he  crossed  himself  devoutly,  and  at  last  informed 
the  crowd  around  him  that  he  had  the  very  prayer  and  the 
very  remedy  which  had  been  prescribed.  He  then  played 
his  fiddle,  singing  the  prayer  in  a  solemn  chant :  and  then  he 
pulled  out  of  his  pocket  a  packet  of  little  books  and  little 
73 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

boxes.  They  are  only  one  halfpenny  each ;  and  all  that  is 
necessary  is  that  they  should  touch  the  figure  of  the  saint  on 
the  canvas,  to  be  imbued  with  the  necessary  virtue.  He 
sells  them  rapidly;  each  time  that  he  puts  them  to  the 
canvas  crossing  himself,  and  insisting  that  the  party  who 
purchases  shall  do  the  same.  He  takes  his  fiddle  again,  and 
sings  the  history  of  the  saint,  pointing  with  his  fiddlestick 
to  the  compartments  of  the  picture  as  he  goes  on  ;  and  now 
he  pulls  out  more  little  books  and  more  boxes,  and  how  fast 
they  purchase  them !  The  stock-in-trade  in  his  own  pos- 
session is  certainly  of  little  value  ;  but  he  possesses  a  fruitful 
mine  in  the  superstition  of  others.  Ah,  well  I  Are  not  those 
inside  the  church  setting  him  an  example  of  mixing  up  religion 
with  quackery  ? 

Spa  is  beautifully  situated,  between  abrupt  hills  covered 
with  verdure ;  the  walks  cut  in  these  hills  are  very  beautiful, 
and  much  pains  have  been  taken  to  render  the  place  agree- 
able ; — no  wonder,  when  we  recollect  how  many  crowned 
heads  have  visited  the  place :  but  the  sun  of  Spa  has  set,  pro- 
bably never  to  rise  again ;  for  whatever  may  be  the  property 
of  its  waters,  to  be  frequented,  a  watering-place  must  be 
fashionable.  There  are  many  causes  for  its  desertion.  One 
is,  the  effects  of  the  Belgian  revolution.  During  the  time 
that  Belgium  was  attached  to  the  Netherlands  the  king,  with 
the  prince  and  princess  of  Orange,  came  here  almost  every 
year,  bringing  with  them,  of  course,  a  great  number  of  the 
nobility ;  but  now  the  nobility  have  deserted  the  Court,  and 
when  Leopold  came  here,  no  one  followed.  He  was  dis- 
gusted, and  remained  but  a  few  days.  The  Prussians  used 
also  to  resort  very  much  to  Spa ;  but  the  King  of  Prussia  find- 
ing that  so  many  young  men  were  ruined  at  the  gaming- 
tables, and  so  much  distress  occasioned  by  it,  with  a  most 
fatherly  despotism,  has  refused  all  the  officers  permission  to 
visit  Spa,  and  has  forbidden  the  medical  men  to  recommend 
the  waters.  The  Russians  also  flocked  in  great  numbers  to 
Spa ;  but  the  emperor,  although  very  indifferent  about  their 
losing  their  money,  is  very  particular  about  his  subjects  gain- 
ing revolutionary  opinions  ;  and  Spa  being  in  a  revolutionary 
country,  has  been  condemned  ;  they  may  just  as  well  ask  to 
go  to  Siberia,  for  that  would  probably  be  their  route ;  and 
lastly,  there  is  one  more  cause  which,  these  two  last  seasons, 
74 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

has  had  a  powerful  effect ;  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  cer- 
tain book,  called  the  "Bubbles  of  the  Brunnen."  I  say  for  the 
last  two  seasons,  for  its  influence  will  not  extend  to  a  third, 
as  hundreds  and  hundreds  who  have  gone  to  the  Baths  with 
the  intention  of  passing  this  season,  have  already  returned 
in  disgust.  A  word  upon  this. 

When  Sir  George  Head  published  his  "  Bubbles,"  he  set 
people  almost  as  mad  as  they  were  during  the  great  "  Bubble 
Mania;  "  and  like  all  the  mining  and  other  associations,  they 
have  proved  but  bubbles  at  last.  It  is  said  that  one  hundred 
and  thirty-five  thousand  passports  were  taken  out  last  year  to 
go  up  the  Rhine,  by  people  who  wished  to  see  the  pigs  go 
through  their  daily  manoeuvres,  to  an  unearthly  solo  on  the 
horn,  and  to  witness  the  decapitation  of  the  Seltzer-water 
bottles,  which  were  condemned  as  traitors.  Now,  so  Large  an 
influx  of  people  to  these  German  watering-places  could  have 
but  one  effect,  that  of  a  glorious  harvest  to  the  innkeepers, 
and  those  who  had  lodgings  to  let.  The  prices  at  these 
places  have  now  become  so  enormous  that  three  florins  have 
been  asked  for  a  single  bed,  and  everything  else  has  risen  in 
the  same  proportion.  The  reaction  has  now  begun  to  take 
place,  and  every  day  and  every  hour  we  have  carriages  return- 
ing through  Liege,  and  other  towns,  from  these  watering- 
places,  the  occupants  holding  up  their  hands,  quite  forgetting 
the  pigs  and  bottles,  and  only  exclaiming  against  extortion, 
and  everything  German.  They  have  paid  too  dear  for  their 
whistle,  as  Franklin  used  to  say  ;  the  bubble  has  burst,  and 
they  look  with  regret  at  their  empty  purses.  And  yet  all  that 
Head  said  in  his  amusing  book  was  true.  He  rambled  through 
a  verdant  and  unfrequented  lane,  and  described  what  he  felt 
as  he  stopped  to  pick  blackberries.  An  immense  multitude 
have  followed  him,  the  green  lane  has  been  beaten  down  into 
a  high  road,  and,  as  for  blackberries,  they  are  only  to  be  pro- 
cured at  the  price  of  peaches  in  May. 

And  now  let  us  reflect  whether  the  bubble  will  not  also 
burst  with  the  Germans.  Formerly  they  were  contented  with 
moderate  profits,  and  received  their  visitors  with  humility  and 
thankfulness.  Now,  that  they  have  suddenly  made  large 
profits,  they  have  become  independent  and  unceremonious ; 
and,  like  most  people,  because  they  have  reaped  a  golden 
harvest  for  two  years,  they  anticipate  that  it  will  continue, 
75 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

The  value  of  property  at  these  places  has  risen,  speculations 
have  been  entered  into  on  a  large  scale,  provisions  and  the 
necessaries  of  life  have  become  dear  ;  new  houses  are  building 
against  time,  and  the  proprietors  smoke  their  pipes  with 
becoming  gravity,  calculating  upon  their  future  gains.  But 
the  company  will  fall  off  more  and  more  each  succeeding  year, 
although  the  speculations  will  continue ;  for  people  always 
find  a  good  reason  for  a  bad  season,  and  anticipate  a  better 
one  the  next.  At  last  they  will  find  that  they  are  again 
deserted,  and  property  will  sink  in  value  to  nothing ;  the 
reaction  will  have  fully  taken  place,  prices  will  fall  even  lower 
than  they  were  at  first;  honesty  and  civility  will  be  reassumed, 
although,  probably,  the  principal  will  have  been  lost.  Thus 
will  the  bubble  burst  with  them,  as  it  has  already  with 
deserted  Spa. 

But  when  all  idle  people  shall  have  visited  all  the  bubbling 
fountains  of  Germany,  where  are  they  to  go  next?  There  are 
some  very  nice  springs  in  Iceland  not  yet  patronised  ;  but 
although  the  springs  there  are  hot,  the  Springs,  vernally 
speaking,  are  cold.  I  can  inform  travellers  where  they  will 
find  out  something  new,  and  I  advise  them  to  proceed  to  the 
boiling  springs  at  St.  Michael's,  one  of  the  Western  Isles,  and 
which  are  better  worth  seeing  than  all  the  springs  that 
Germany  can  produce.  I  will  act  as  guide  de  voyage. 

When  you  land  at  St.  Michael's,  you  will  find  yourself  in 
one  of  the  dirtiest  towns  in  the  world,  and  will  put  up  at  one 
of  the  worst  hotels;  however,  you  will  have  to  pay  just  as 
dear  as  if  lodged  at  the  Clarendon,  and  fed  at  the  Kochcr  de 
Cancale.  The  town  contains  many  inhabitants,  but  more  pigs. 
German  pigs  are  not  to  be  compared  to  them.  You  must 
then  hire  donkeys  and  ascend  to  the  mountains,  and  after  a 
hot  ride,  you  will  arrive  at  a  small  valley  in  the  centre  of  the 
mountains,  which  was  once  the  crater  of  a  volcano,  but  is 
now  used  by  nature  as  a  kettle,  in  which  she  keeps  hot  water 
perpetually  boiling  for  those  who  may  require  it.  There  you 
will  behold  the  waters  bubbling  and  boiling  in  all  directions, 
throwing  up  huge  white  columns  of  smoke,  brought  out  in 
strong  relief  by  the  darker  sides  of  the  mountains  which  rear 
their  heads  around  you.  The  ground  you  tread  upon  trembles 
as  you  walk ;  you  feel  that  it  is  only  a  thin  crust,  and  that  in 
a  moment  you  may  sink  into  the  vast  cauldron  below,  and 
76 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

have  a.  hot  bath  without  paying  for  it.  Continue  along  the 
valley,  and  you  will  find  lakes  of  still,  deadly-cold  water,  with 
hot  springs  at  their  verge,  throwing  the  smoke  over  their 
surface,  while  they  pour  in  their  boiling  water  as  if  they 
would  fain  raise  the  temperature ;  depositing  sulphur  in  cakes 
and  crystals  in  their  course.  And  in  another  spot  there  is 
a  dark,  unfathomable  hole,  called  the  Devil's  Mouth :  you 
approach  it,  and  you  hear  low  moanings  and  rumblings,  as 
if  nature  had  the  stomach-ache ;  and  then  you  will  have  a 
sudden  explosion  and  a  noise  like  thunder,  and  a  shower  of 
mud  will  be  thrown  out  to  a  distance  of  several  yards.  Wait 
again ;  you  will  again  hear  the  moans  and  rumblings,  and  in 
about  three  minutes  the  explosion  and  the  discharge  will 
again  take  place,  and  thus  has  this  eternal  diarrhoea  con- 
tinued ever  since  the  memory  or  tradition  of  man. 

Yet,  upon  this  apparently  insecure  and  dangerous  spot  have 
been  erected  houses  and  baths,  and  it  is  resorted  to  by  the 
fashionables  of  St.  Michael's,  who  wish,  by  its  properties,  to 
get  rid  of  certain  cutaneous  disorders :  for  the  whole  air  is 
loaded  with  sulphurous  vapour,  as  the  eternal  pot  keeps 
boiling. 

Observe  the  advantages  of  this  place  :— you  may  have  a 
bath  as  hot  as  you  please,  as  cold  as  you  please,  or  you  may 
have  a  mud  douche,  if  you  have  that  buffalo  propensity  ;  and 
then  you  will  have  to  rough  it,  which  is  so  delightful ;  you 
will  find  little  or  nothing  to  eat,  and  plenty  of  bedfellows  in 
all  their  varieties,  a  burning  sun,  and  a  dense  atmosphere,  and 
you  will  be  very  delighted  to  get  back  again,  which,  after  all, 
is  the  summum  bonum  to  be  obtained  by  travel. 

Not  very  far  from  this  valley  of  hot  water  there  is  another 
valley,  containing  four  small  lakes,  and  in  those  lakes  are 
found  the  most  beautiful  gold  and  silver  fish,  perhaps,  in  the 
world.  How  they  came  there  Heaven  only  knows ;  but  I 
mention  this  because  there  is  a  curious  coincidence.  These 
lakes  are  known  by  the  name  of  the  Quadre  Cidade,  or  four 
cities.  Now,  if  my  readers  will  recollect,  in  the  "  Arabian 
Nights,"  there  is  a  story  of  a  valley  with  four  lakes,  which  were 
once  four  cities,  and  that  in  these  lakes  were  fish  of  various 
beautiful  colours,  who  were  once  the  inhabitants.  If  I  re- 
collect right,  when  the  fish  were  caught  and  put  into  the 
frying-pan,  they  jumped  up  and  made  a  speech  (so  would  fish 
77 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

nowadays,  if  they  were  not  mute) ;  and  the  story  is  told  by 
a  prince,  whose  lower  extremities  are  turned  into  black  marble, 
very  convenient,  certainly,  if  he  dined  out  every  day,  as  he  had 
only  his  upper  toilet  to  complete.  This  coincidence  appeared 
to  me  to  be  very  curious,  and  had  I  had  time  and  opportunity 
I  certainly  should  have  fried  four  of  these  unfortunate  fish,  to 
ascertain  whether  they  were  of  the  real  breed  spoken  of  in 
the  Arabian  tales,  of  the  authenticity  of  which  no  one,  I  pre- 
sume, will  venture  to  doubt. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

SPA,  July  15. 

YV  HAT  a  curious  history  might  be  afforded  by  Spa  and  its 
gaming-tables  !  When  Spa  was  in  its  glory,  when  crowned 
heads  met  and  dukes  were  forced  to  remain  in  their  carriages 
for  want  of  accommodation,  when  it  was  the  focus  of  all  that 
was  recherche  and  brilliant,  for  Spa  was  so  before  the  French 
revolution,  the  gaming-tables  were  a  source  of  immense  profit ; 
and  to  whom  do  you  imagine  that  a  great  portion  of  the  profits 
belonged  ? — to  no  less  a  person  than  the  most  sacred  and 
puissant  prince,  the  Bishop  of  Liege,  who  derived  a  great 
revenue  from  them.  But  it  would  appear  as  if  there  was  a 
judgment  upon  this  anomalous  secular  property,  for  these 
gaming-tables  were  the  cause  of  the  Prince  Bishop  losing  all, 
and  being  driven  out  of  his  territories.  There  were  two 
gaming  establishments  at  Spa,  the  Redoubt,  in  the  town,  and 
the  Vauxhall,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  outside  of  it.  The 
Redoubt  is  a  fine  building,  with  splendid  ball-rooms  and  a 
theatre,  but  you  must  go  through  the  gaming-rooms  to  enter 
either  the  ball-room  or  the  theatre.  The  Vauxhall  has  no 
theatre,  but  the  rooms  are  even  more  spacious;  but  when  Spa 
was  at  its  zenith,  even  these  two  immense  edifices  were  barely 
sufficient  for  the  company.  Both  these  establishments  were 
under  the  same  proprietors,  and  it  so  happened  that  the  English 
nobility,  who  were  always  a  very  strong  party  here,  were  dis- 
pleased with  the  conduct  of  the  lessees,  and  immediately  raised 
funds  for  the  building  of  a  second  Vauxhall.  The  bishop 
ordered  the  building  to  be  discontinued,  but,  as  by  the  privi- 
leges granted  by  former  bishops,  this  was  a  violation  of  the 
78 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

rights  of  the  Liegeois,  his  order  was  disregarded,  and  the 
Vauxhall  now  known  by  the  name  of  the  Vauxhall,  was  finished. 
When  finished,  the  bishop  would  not  permit  it  to  be  opened, 
but  his  commands  being  disregarded,  he  came  down  with  two 
hundred  soldiers  and  two  pieces  of  cannon  and  took  possession. 
This  created  a  revolution,  and  the  bishop  was  ultimately 
obliged  to  fly  his  territory  and  seek  assistance.  The  Prussians 
marched  an  army  into  the  city,  and  there  was  apparent  sub- 
mission, but  as  soon  as  they  quitted,  the  insurrection  again 
took  place,  and  the  bishop  was  forced  again  to  solicit  aid  from 
the  Austrians,  for  Prussia  would  no  longer  interfere.  Metter- 
nich,  who  was  so  fond  of  legitimacy  that  he  considered  the 
gaming-tables  a  legitimate  source  of  revenue  to  the  apostle, 
marched  in  an  Austrian  army,  and  hundreds  were  slaughtered 
that  the  bishop  might  obtain  his  rights.  Such  was  the  state 
of  affairs  when  the  French  Revolution  broke  out  and  con- 
vulsed Europe,  and  the  province  of  Liege  was  among  the 
very  first  to  receive  with  open  arms  the  bonnet  rouge  and  to 
join  themselves  with  France,  and  thus  did  the  bishop  loss  his 
beautiful  province  for  ever.  As  far  as  Liege  was  concerned, 
the  French  Revolution  proved  a  blessing.  It  certainly  was  a 
disgraceful  finale  to  an  ecclesiastical  power,  which,  as  I  have 
before  mentioned,  had  formerly  led  the  van  in  the  march  of 
Christianity  and  liberty. 

But  it  appears  that  the  clergy  are  fated  to  have  an  interest 
in  these  gaming-tables,  the  stipend  of  the  English  resident 
clergyman  being,  even  now,  paid  out  of  their  profits ;  for 
when  Belgium  was  made  over  to  the  Netherlands,  King 
William  assumed  his  right  to  the  bishop's  former  share  of  the 
profits  of  the  tables,  and,  of  course,  brought  as  many  people 
down  here  as  he  could  to  lose  tJicir  money,  as  he  pocketed  his 
thirds.  Since  the  revolution,  Leopold  is  in  King  William's 
shoes,  but  there  are  little  or  no  profits,  as  Spa  is  deserted 
and  the  expenses  of  the  establishments  are  great.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  spot  of  ground  in  Europe — I  will  not  except  Paris 
— where  so  much  money  has  been  lost  by  gaming  as  at  Spa. 
I  was  walking  with  a  friend  who  pointed  out  to  me  a  small 
pavilion  in  a  garden.  "There,"  says  he,  "the  Prince  of 
Orange,  who  played  very  deeply,  lost  to  a  Spanish  gentleman 
those  very  jewels  that  were  pretended  to  be  stolen.  It  was 
Well  got  up  in  the  papers,  but  that  is  the  real  truth."  How 
79 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

far  it  may  be  the  truth  or  not,  I  cannot  pretend  to  say, 
and  only  know  that  in  Spa  you  cannot  pick  your  teeth 
without  all  the  world  knowing  it,  and  that  this  is  fully 
believed  at  Spa  to  be  the  real  truth  of  the  disappearance 
of  the  splendid  jewels  of  the  princess,  which  have  since 
been  redeemed  from  the  Spanish  gentleman,  who  now  resides 
at  the  Hague. 

Gaming  has  always  been  held  up  in  abhorrence  as  a  vice ; 
but  it  is  rather  a  passion  strongly  implanted  by  nature,  and 
abhorrent  from   the  dreadful   effects  produced  by  its  over- 
powering influence,  than  a  vice  per  se.     Life  itself  is  a  lottery, 
and  the  best  part  of  our  life  is  passed  in  gambling, 
difficult  to  draw  the  line  between  gambling  and  speculation, 
for  every  speculation  is  a  gambling  transaction.     Is  not  the 
merchant  a  gambler?     In  fact,  is  not  every  venture  an  act 
of  gambling?     As  for  the   Stock  Exchange,  it  is  the  very 
worst  species  of  gambling.     All  we  can  say  is  that  gambling 
may  be   legitimate   or  otherwise  ;  that  is,  there   are  species 
of  gambling  which  may  enrich  the  individual  if  he  is  fortu- 
nate  but  whether  it  enriches  him  or  not,  at  all  events  it  i 
beneficial  to  the  community  at  large.    A  merchant  speculates 
—he  sends  out  manufactures  of  every  description  :  he  tails, 
and  is  ruined :  but  the  artisans  have  procured  employment 
for  their  industry,  and,  although  the  merchant  fails,  the  com- 
munity at  large  has  benefited.     This  is  legitimate  gambling ; 
but  do  people  in  business  stop  there  ?     No ;  they  will  agree 
to  deliver  so  many  thousands  of  casks  of  tallow  or  tons  of 
hemp  at  such  and  such  a  time  and  at  a  certain  price,  whatever 
the  price  may  then  be.     They  cannot  complete  their  engage- 
ment, and  they  are  ruined ;  but  in  this  instance,  which   is 
simply  termed  speculation,  we  have  quite  as  much  gambling 
as  if  the  money  were  at  once  laid  down  on  the  table,  and  the 
chances  decided  in  an  hour,  instead  of  so  many  months.     But 
there  is  this  difference,  that  this  party  does  not  injure  his 
character  by  such  a  transaction,  whereas,  if  he  lost  his  money 
at  the  gaming-table  he  would.     The  English  are,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Americans,  the  most  gambling  nation  under 
heaven;  naturally  so,  because  they  are  the  greatest  mercantile 
nation.     The  spirit  of  gambling  is  innate,  and  when  directed 
into  the  proper  channel  it  becomes  enterprise.     It  is  doubtless 
a  "reat  moral  error  on  the  part  of  a  government  to  encourage 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

vice  with  the  view  of  increasing  the  revenue,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  there  is  no  tax  so  well  laid  on  as  that  which  is  imposed 
on  vice.  Again,  there  are  certain  propensities  in  man  which 
cannot  be  overcome,  and  which,  if  attempted  to  be  wholly 
eradicated  by  legal  enactments,  would  occasion  more  evil  still. 
All  that  a  judicious  government  can  or  should  attempt  to 
effect  is  to  restrain  them  within  proper  bounds,  to  regulate 
them,  and,  as  much  as  possible,  to  keep  them  out  of  sight, 
that  the  virus  may  not  extend.  It  is  well  known  that  certain 
houses  are  licensed  by  the  magistrates,  because,  it  being  im- 
possible to  eradicate  the  vice,  they  can  do  no  more  than  to 
separate  it,  that  it  may  not  be  communicated  to  the  healthier 
part  of  the  community.  Now,  upon  this  piinciple,  which  is 
the  true  principle  of  sound  legislation,  I  have  often  thought 
that  it  was  a  great  error  in  our  legislature  when  they  con- 
sented to  put  down  the  public  lotteries  in  England.  I  am 
convinced  that  they  were  beneficial,  acting  as  safety-valves  to 
the  gambling  spirit  of  the  nation,  and  that  their  prohibition 
has  been  productive  of  much  crime  and  misery.  The  spirit 
of  gambling  cannot  be  eradicated  ;  it  ought,  therefore,  to  be 
kept  within  clue  bounds.  There  was  one  great  advantage  in 
the  English  lottery  ;  it  was  drawn  but  once  a  year,  and  those 
who  purchased  the  tickets  were  content  to  remain  quiet  until 
their  success  was  made  known.  The  chances.,  although  very 
distant,  of  so  high  a  prize  satisfied  the  spirit  of  gambling;  if 
they  lost,  they  purchased  again,  and  waited  patiently  for 
another  year,  trusting  to  be  more  fortunate.  Now,  although 
they  gambled,  they  did  not  acquire  the  habit  of  gaming. 
What  has  been  the  consequence  since  the  lotteries  have 
been  abolished  ?  That  there  are  hells  of  every  description 
established  throughout  the  metropolis,  from  those  which 
admit  the  stake  of  a  shilling,  to  Crockford's  splendid  Pande- 
monium ;  and  those  who  were  formerly  content  with  a 
lottery  -  ticket  now  pass  their  evenings  away  from  their 
families,  and  ruin  themselves  in  a  very  short  time.  The 
lottery  never  ruined  any  one.  The  sum  staked  might  be 
large  for  the  circumstances  of  the  parties,  but  it  was  a  yearly 
stake,  and  did  not  interfere  with  the  industry,  the  profits,  or 
the  domestic  happiness  of  the  year.  One  half  the  tradesmen 
who  now  appear  in  the  Gazette  have  been  ruined  by  fre- 
quenting the  low  hells  with  which  the  metropolis  abounds. 
81  c 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

From  the  above  considerations,  I  do  not  think  it  was  advisable 
to  abolish  the  lotteries. 

The  next  question  is  one  upon  which  I  hesitate  to  offer  an 
opinion ;  but  it  is  worthy  of  consideration  how  far  it  may  be 
advisable  to  licence  and  tax  gaming-houses.  Were  it  possible 
to  put  them  down  altogether,  the  question  need  not  be  dis- 
cussed ;  but  it  is  impossible.  Has  any  magistrate  ventured 
to  interfere  with  Crockford's,  where  it  is  well  known  that  the 
highest  gaming  is  carried  on  every  night  ?  Are  you  not  per- 
mitted to  walk  through  the  club  at  any  hour  of  the  day  ?  Do 
they  not  have  the  tables  exposed  to  the  view  of  every  one  ? 
Yet  who  has  interfered,  although  you  find  that  the  smaller 
hells  are  constantly  broken  in  upon,  and  the  parties  had  up  to 
the  police-office  ?  Are  not  the  laws  made  for  all  ?  Is  that  an 
offence  in  the  eyes  of  government  in  a  poor  man  which  is  not 
one  in  the  rich  ?  Yet,  this  is  the  case  :  and  why  so  ?  Because 
the  rich  will  game,  and  the  government  cannot  prevent 
them.  Has  not  a  man  a  right  to  do  as  he  pleases  with  his 
own  money  ?  You  legalise  the  worst  of  gambling  on  the 
Stock  Exchange,  for  a  man  can  there  risk  what  he  cannot 
pay :  you  cannot  control  the  gaming  of  the  racecourse,  and 
yet  you  would  prevent  a  man  from  gambling  after  his  own 
fashion.  You  wink  at  the  higher  classes  ruining  themselves, 
and  you  will  not  permit  the  middle  classes.  Now,  the  con- 
sequence of  not  having  licensed  tables  is  that  you  have  no 
control  over  them,  and  the  public,  who  will  play,  are  the 
dupes  of  rascals  who  cheat  in  every  way  :  whereas,  if  a  certain 
number  were  licensed  and  controlled,  those  who  play  would 
have  a  better  chance,  and  the  licensed  tables  taxed  by  govern- 
ment would  take  care  to  put  down  all  others  who  were  not. 
We  must  legislate  for  society  as  it  is,  not  as  it  ought  to  be ; 
nnd,  as  on  other  points  we  have  found  it  necessary  to  submit 
to  the  lesser  evil  of  the  two,  it  is  a  question  whether  in  this 
also  we  might  not  do  better  by  keeping  within  due  bounds 
that  which  it  is  impossible  to  prevent. 

I  was  amused  with  an  anecdote  told  me  to-day.  An 
Englishman  and  a  Frenchman  arrived  at  Spa  in  the  same 
diligence.  They  both  took  up  their  quarters  at  the  same  hotel, 
bat  from  that  moment  appeared  to  have  no  further  intimacy. 
ft  Do  you  sec  that  fellow  ?  "  would  the  Englishman  say,  point- 
ing at  the  Frenchman ;  "  I  know  him,  and  he's  a  confounded 
82 


•    DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

rogue.  I  recommend  you  to  be  shy  of  him."  "Voyez-vous 
cet  Anglais  ?  "  said  the  Frenchman  as  the  Englishman  passed 
by.  "  Gardez-vous  en  bien ;  c'est  un  coquin  superieur." 
Thus  did  they  continue  to  warn  the  company  of  each  other, 
until  the  close  of  the  season,  when  one  fine  day  they  both 
went  off  together  in  the  diligence,  leaving  all  their  debts 
unpaid,  and  their  trunks  and  portmanteaus  for  the  benefit  of 
the  landlord  of  the  hotel,  who,  on  opening  them,  found  them 
to  contain  nothing  but  stones  and  rubbish.  This  was  a  new 
species  of  holy  alliance,  but  the  ruse  was  by  no  means  ill 
advised.  When  you  hear  a  man  constantly  proclaiming  the 
roguery  of  another  you  are  too  apt  to  give  him  credit  for 
honesty  in  his  own  person.  Thus,  with  those  whom  each 
party  associated  and  dealt  with  they  obtained  a  credit  for 
honesty  which  enabled  them  to  succeed  in  their  roguish 
endeavours. 


CHAPTER  XX 

OSTEND. 

_T  ROM  Spa  to  Liege,  from  Liege  to  Brussels,  from  Brussels 
to  Ostend,  how  detestable  it  is  to  go  over  the  same  ground 
again  and  again !  only  to  be  imposed  upon  and  cheated 
again  and  again.  What  a  weary  world  this  is,  and  what  a 
rascally  one  !  How  delightful  a  little  honesty  would  be,  by 
way  of  a  change  !  Of  all  the  rascality  spread,  like  butter  on 
bread,  over  the  surface  of  the  globe,  certainly  the  butter  lies 
thicker  on  the  confines  of  each  territory.  There  is  a  con- 
centration of  dishonesty  at  the  ports  of  embarkation  and 
debarkation.  Take  London  when  you  land  from  a  steam- 
boat, or  Dover,  or  Calais,  or  Ostend.  It  is  nothing  but  a 
system  of  extortion  or  overreaching.  And  why  so  ?  because 
in  the  hurry,  the  confusion,  the  sickness,  and  the  ignorance 
of  what  is  right,  everything  that  is  wrong  can  be  practised 
with  impunity.  These  preyers  upon  mankind  at  the  confines 
remind  you  of  the  sharks  in  India,  who  always  ply  in  the  surf- 
where  their  motions  cannot  be  seen,  and  the  unwary  are 
invariably  their  prey.  I  have  knocked  three  down-  already, 
and  one  would  imagine  they  would  hasten  for  redress ;  but 
they  will  not,  for  that  would  take  hours,  and  during  these 
hours  they  will  lose  the  opportunity  of  making  their  harvest  > 
83 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

so  they  get  up  again,  and  pocket  the  affront,  that  they  may 
not  lose  time  in  filling  their  pockets.  Talking  about  roguery, 
there  was  a  curious  incident  occurred  some  time  back,  in 
which  a  rascal  was  completely  outwitted.  A  bachelor  gentle- 
man, who  was  a  very  superior  draftsman  and  caricaturist,  was 
laid  up  in  his  apartments  with  the  gout  in  both  feet.  He 
could  not  move,  but  sat  in  an  easy-chair,  and  was  wheeled  by 
his  servant  in  and  out  of  his  chamber  to  his  sitting-room. 
Now,  a  certain  well-known  vagabond  ascertained  the  fact, 
and  watched  until  the  servant  was  sent  upon  a  message. 
The  servant  came  out  of  the  front  door,  but  left  the  area 
door  open,  communicating  with  the  kitchen.  Down  went 
the  vagabond,  entered  the  kitchen,  and  walked  upstairs, 
where,  as  he  anticipated,  he  found  the  gentleman  quite 
alone  and  helpless.  "  I  am  sorry,  sir,  to  see  you  in  this 
situation,"  said  the  rogue ;  "  you  cannot  move,  and  your 
servant  is  out."  The  gentleman  stared.  "  It  is  excessively 
careless  of  you  to  leave  yourself  so  exposed ;  for  behold  the 
consequences.  I  take  the  liberty  of  removing  this  watch 
and  these  seals  off  the  table,  and  putting  them  into  my  own 
pocket ;  and,  as  I  perceive  your  keys  are  here,  I  shall  now 
open  these  drawers,  and  see  what  suits  my  purpose."  "  Oh  ! 
pray  help  yourself,  I  beg,"  replied  the  gentleman,  who  was 
aware  that  he  could  do  nothing  to  prevent  him.  The  rogue 
did  so  accordingly ;  he  found  the  plate  in  the  sideboard 
drawer,  and  many  other  articles  which  suited  him,  and  in 
about  ten  minutes,  having  made  up  his  bundle,  he  made 
the  gentleman  a  very  low  b:>w,  and  decamped.  But  the 
gentleman  had  the  use  of  his  hands,  and  had  not  been  idle  ; 
he  had  taken  an  exact  likeness  of  the  thief  with  his  pencil, 
and  on  his  servant  returning  soon  after,  he  despatched  him 
immediately  to  Bow  Street  with  the  drawing,  and  an  account 
of  what  had  happened.  The  likeness  was  so  good  that  the 
man  was  immediately  identified  by  the  runners,  and  was 
captured  before  he  had  time  to  dispose  of  a  single  article 
purloined.  He  was  brought  to  the  gentleman  in  two  hours 
afterwards,  identified,  the  property  found  on  him  sworn  to, 
and  in  six  weeks  he  was  on  his  passage  to  Botany  Bay. 


DIARY  ON   THE  CONTINENT 

CHAPTER  XXI 

._.  LONDON,  November. 

W  E  have  the  signs  of  the  times  here.  I  peep  through  the 
fog  and  see  quite  enough  to  satisfy  me  that  the  prosperity 
is  but  partial.  Money  in  plenty,  but  lying  in  heaps— not 
circulated.  Every  one  hugs  his  bag,  and  is  waiting  to  see  what 
the  event  may  be.  Retrenchment  is  written  up  as  evident 
as  the  prophetic  words  of  fire  upon  the  walls  of  Belshazzar's 
palace — To  let — to  let — to  let.  Leave  London  in  any  direction, 
and  you  find  the  same  mystical  characters  every  one  hundred 
yards  of  the  road.  This  beautiful  villa,  this  cottage  omt'e, 
this  capital  house  with  pleasure-grounds,  this  mansion  and 
park — all — all  to  let.  It  is  said  that  there  are  upwards  of 
seven  thousand  of  these  country  seats  to  let  within  twelve 
miles  of  the  metropolis.  Again,  look  at  the  arms  of  the 
carriages  which  still  roll  through  the  streets,  and  you  will 
perceive  that,  if  not  with  a  coronet  or  supporters,  nine  out  of 
ten  have  the  widow's  lozenge.  And  why  so  ?  because  they 
belong  to  the  widows  of  those  who  died  in  the  times  of  plenty, 
and  who  left  them  large  jointures  upon  their  estates.  They, 
of  course,  can  still  support,  and  even  better  support,  the 
expense  ;  but  the  estates  now  yield  but  sufficient  to  pay  the 
jointure,  and  the  incumbent  swallows  up  the  whole.  And 
where  are  the  real  owners  of  the  properties  ?  At  Paris,  at 
Naples,  at  Brussels,  if  they  can  aft'ord  to  be  in  a  capital — 
if  not,  dispersed  over  Belgium,  Switzerland,  and  Italy — re- 
trenching in  other  countries,  or  living  more  comfortably  upon 
their  incomes.  How  many  millions,  for  it  does  amount  to 
millions,  are  now  spent  on  the  Continent,  enriching  the  people 
of  other  countries,  and  in  all  probability  laying  up  for  those 
countries  the  sinews  for  another  war  to  be  directed  against 
England !  How  much  of  wretchedness  and  starvation  has 
been  suffered  in  our  own  country  within  these  few  years, 
which,  if  our  people  had  not  been  living  abroad,  might  never 
have  been  felt!  Where  are  the  elite  of  our  aristocracy? 
Where  are  our  country  gentlemen  who  used  to  keep  open 
house  at  their  estates,  disseminating  their  wealth  and  pro- 
ducing happiness?  All  driven  abroad — society  disjointed—  no 
leader  of  fashion  to  set  the  example  by  luxurious  entertain- 
85 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

ments,  of  disseminating  that  wealth  which  ultimately  finds 
its  way  into  the  greasy  pocket  of  the  labourer  or  mechanic. 
Shops  opened  late  and  closed  early.  Gin  palaces,  like  hell, 
ever  open  to  a  customer.  The  pulse  of  London  hardly 
beats — it  is  perceptible,  but  no  more.  Nothing  is  active 
but  the  press  and  the  pressure  from  without.  But  who 
would  remain  ten  days  in  London  in  the  month  of  November, 
when  he  can  go  away,  without  he  had  serious  thoughts  of 
suicide  ?  Candles  at  high  noon,  yellow  fogs,  and  torches 
in  midday  do  not  suit  me,  so  I'm  off  again  to  a  purer 
atmosphere. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

SPA,  June  30. 

YESTERDAY  I  fell  in  with  two  old  friends,  who,  from  a 
mere  "truant  disposition,"  joined,  perhaps,  with  a  little  good- 
will towards  me,  came  over  to  Spa.  As  soon  as  their  arrival 
had  been  announced,  I  went  to  them,  and  at  their  request 

joined  their  dinner.     After  our  first  greetings,  B ,  who 

not  only  appears,  but  really  is  a  man  of  fashion,  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  term,  wanted  his  snuff-box.  It  was  in  his  bed- 
room, and  his  bedroom  was  locked  by  the  servant,  who  had 
taken  the  key  and  gone  out.  The  consequence  was  that 

B had  to  wait  some  time,  and  until  the  man  came  back. 

I  have  always  had  a  great  aversion  to  a  valet  when  constantly 
moving  about  on  the  Continent  as  a  single  man  ;  and  although 
I  do  not  now,  as  I  used  to  do  when  a  midshipman,  brush  my 
own  clothes  and  black  my  own  shoes,  yet  I  like  independence 
in  everything,  and  infinitely  prefer  doing  anything  myself,  to 
being  waited  upon  ;  for,  generally  speaking,  it  is  the  master 
who  waits  and  not  the  man. 

"  I   wonder   you    bother   yourself  with    such   a   travelling 

appendage,  B ,"  observed  I,  giving  him  a  pinch  of  snuff 

to  quiet  his  impatience.  "  I  have  never  lately  travelled  with 
one." 

"  My  dear  fellow — the  comfort  of  it — you  have  no  idea. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  get  on  without  one." 

"Quite  impossible,"  obser'ed  W ,  my  other  acquaint- 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

"I  have  been  brought  up  in  a  school  in  which  the  word 
impossible  has  been  erased  from  the  language." 

"  Well,  but  the  comfort  of  it.  When  you  arrive,  dirty  and 
dusty,  your  portmanteau  opened,  all  your  articles  of  dress 
laid  out." 

"  I  can  do  all  that  myself  sooner  than  he  can  ;  and  as  I 
must  wait  till  it  be  clone,  I  may  as  well  do  it  myself." 

"  Yes,  so  you  may,  but  then  the  security ;  everything 
locked  up  ;  which,  in  a  strange  hotel,  is  so  necessary." 

"  I  lock  my  own  room,  and  know  where  to  find  the  key 
when  I  come  in." 

"  Very  likely  ;  but  still  it  is  impossible  to  travel,  comfort- 
ably without  a  valet." 

"  Quite  impossible,"  rejoined  W . 

"Be  it  so,"  replied  I;  "we  differ  in  opinion.  All  I  can 
say  is,  that  necessary  as  a  valet  is  when  stationary,  he  is  a 
nuisance  when  you  travel  en  gallon." 

The  conversation  dropped,  and  we  sat  down  to  dinner ; 
the  time  passed  away,  as  it  alwavs  does,  when  old  friends, 
who  respect  and  like  each  other,  meet  after  an  absence  of 
some  months.  After  dinner  we  smoked  cigars ;  and  as  the 

evening  advanced,  there  were  none  left  on  the  table.     B 

rang  the  bell  for  his  servant  to  procure  others;  the  servant 
had  gone  out  and  was  nowhere  to  be  found,  and  for  security 
had  locked  the  bedroom  door  and  taken  the  key  with  him. 
So  we  drank  our  claret,  and  waited  for  his  return.  "  Thinks 

I  to  myself "  but   I   said   nothing.     At  last,  we  waited 

till  past  twelve  o'clock;  but  the  gentleman's  gentleman  Avas 

nowhere   to   be   found.       B was   angry   with    the   man, 

W had  thrown  himself  on  the  sofa.      He  wished  to  go 

to  bed  after  a  long  day's  travel ;  but  his  key  was  also,  for 
security,  in  the  valet's  pocket,  who  had  been  searched  for 

everywhere    without    success.       B begged    me    not    to 

remain  out  of  politeness ;  but  I  did  remain,  not  out  cf 
politeness,  but  of  "  malice,"  as  the  French  term  it.  "  I  had 
too  much  pleasure  in  their  company  to  think  of  leaving 
them  ; "  and  we  continued  to  sip  brandy-and- water.  At  last, 

three  o'clock  came;  B was  out  of  all  patience,  W — 

snoring  on  the  sofa,  and  I  quite  delighted.     The  sun  should 

have  poured  his  beams  upon  us  before  I  would  have  gone 

away.     The  bell  was  rung,  but  in  vain,  for  the  waiters  would 

87 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

\rait  no  longer.  It  was  proposed  to  send  for  a  menuisier  to 
pick  the  lock ;  but  how  was  one  to  be  found  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning  ?  At  last  the  valet,  drunk  and  reeling,  in  his 
morning  jacket,  entered  the  room.  "  The  keys  !  the  keys  !  " 
demanded  B ,  in  wrath. 

"The  key  !  "  roared  W ,  who  had  woke  up. 

"  I  have  them,"  replied  the  valet,  with  a  most  knowing 
leer,  facetiously  smiling.  "  I  have  them — all  safe — all  right, 
gentlemen.  Here  they  are,"  continued  the  man,  pulling 
them  out,  and  presenting  them  as  if  he  had  done  a  very 
clever  thing.  "  Here  they  are,  you  see." 

The  man  was  too  tipsy  to  be  expostulated  with,  and  the 
gentlemen  took  their  keys  in  silence.  "And  now,"  said  I, 
"gentlemen,  I  wish  you  a  very  good  night.  You  have  fully 
established  the  extreme  comfort  of  a  travelling  valet,  and 
the  impossibility  of  doing  without  one."  It  was  a  glorious 
victory,  although  to  get  out  of  the  house  I  had  to  open  a 
window  and  leap  from  it,  and  to  get  into  my  own  house  at 
that  hour  was  even  more  difficult. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

1  HAVE  been  reading  Jesse's  "Gleanings."  Is  he  quite 
correct  ?  I  have  my  doubts.  In  one  point  I  certainly  do 
not  agree  with  him,  in  his  favourite  opinion  of  cats.  I  do, 
however,  know  an  instance  of  misplaced  affection  in  a  cat, 
which,  although  it  does  not  add  to  the  moral  character  of 
the  race,  is  extremely  curious  for  more  reasons  than  one, 
and  as  it  happened  in  my  own  family,  I  can  vouch  for  its 
authenticity.  A  little  black  spaniel  had  five  puppies,  which 
were  considered  too  many  for  her  to  bring  up.  As,  how- 
ever, the  breed  was  much  in  request,  her  mistress  was  un- 
willing that  any  of  them  should  be  destroyed,  and  she  asked 
the  cook  whether  she  thought  it  would  be  possible  to  bring 
a  portion  of  them  up  by  hand  before  the  kitchen  fire.  In 
reply,  the  cook  observed  that  the  cat  had  that  day  kittened, 
and  that  perhaps  the  puppies  might  be  substituted  for  her 
progeny.  The  experiment  was  made,  two  of  the  kittens 
were  removed,  and  two  puppies  substituted.  The  cat  made 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

no  objections,  took  to  them  kindly,  and  gradually  all  the 
kittens  were  taken  away,  and  the  cat  nursed  the  two  puppies 
only.  Now,  the  first  curious  fact  was  that  the  two  puppies 
nursed  by  the  cat  were,  in  a  fortnight,  as  active,  forward, 
and  playful  as  kittens  would  have  been :  they  had  the  use 
of  their  legs,  barked,  and  gambolled  about ;  while  the  other 
three,  nursed  by  the  mother,  were  whining  and  rolling  about 
like  fat  slugs.  The  cat  gave  them  her  tail  to  play  with,  and 
they  were  always  in  motion  :  they  very  soon  ate  meat,  and 
long  before  the  others  they  were  fit  to  be  removed.  This 
was  done,  and  the  cat  became  very  inconsolable.  She 
prowled  about  the  house,  and  on  the  second  day  of  tribula- 
tion fell  in  with  the  little  spaniel,  who  was  nursing  the  other 
three  puppies.  "  Oh  ho  ! "  says  puss,  putting  up  her  back, 
"it  is  you  who  have  stolen  my  children."  "No,"  replied 
the  spaniel,  with  a  snarl ;  "  they  are  my  own  flesh  and  blood." 
"Tliat  won't  do,"  said  the  cat;  "I'll  take  my  oath  before 
any  justice  of  peace  that  you  have  my  two  puppies."  There- 
upon issue  was  joined,  that  is  to  say,  there  was  a  desperate 
combat,  which  ended  in  the  defeat  of  the  spaniel,  and  the 
cat  walking  proudly  off  with  one  of  the  puppies,  which  she 
took  to  her  own  bed.  Having  deposited  this  one,  she  re- 
turned, fought  ag;iin,  gained  another  victory,  and  redeemed 
another  puppy.  Now,  it  is  very  singular  that  she  should 
have  only  taken  two,  the  exact  number  she  had  been  de- 
prived of.  Does  this  not  prove,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
power  of  calculating  numbers  in  animals  ?  and  does  not  the 
precocity  of  the  two  puppies  brought  up  by  the  cat  infer 
there  is  some  grounds  for  the  supposition  that  with  the 
milk  is  imbibed  much  of  the  nature  and  disposition  of  the 
mother  ?  A  few  experiments  made  on  these  points  would 
be  interesting,  and  we  should  have  a  new  science,  that  of 
lacleolosy,  to  add  to  craniology,  in  our  nurture  and  rearing 
of  the  species. 

This  reminds  me  of  a  singular  fact  little  known.  The 
Burmahs,  who  are  disciples  of  Gaudma,  equally  with  the 
inhabitants  of  Pegu  and  Syriam,  whose  country  they  have 
conquered,  worship  the  White  Elephant,  who  is  considered 
as  a  god.  There  have  been  but  three  white  elephants  since 
the  foundation  of  the  Burmah  dynasty  by  Alompraa.  The 
first  one  is  dead.,  and  I  have  one  of  his  teeth,  carved  with 
89 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

figures,  which  was  consecrated  to  the  great  Dagon  Pagoda. 
The  second  now  reigns — he  is  attended  by  hundreds,  wears 
a  howdah,  or  cloth,  studded  with  precious  stones,  which  is 
said  to  be  worth  a  million  of  money.  He  also  wears  his 
bangles  or  armlets  on  each  leg,  and  fares  sumptuously  every 
day.  White  elephants  are  very  scarce  ;  the  colour  is  occa- 
sioned by  a  disease  in  the  animal,  a  species  of  leprosy.  Any 
elephant  hunter  in  these  countries  who  is  fortunate  enough 
to  capture  a  white  elephant  is  immediately  created  a  noble, 
and  advanced  to  high  honour  and  wealth.  The  third  white 
elephant,  of  which  I  am  about  to  speak  particularly,  and  who 
may  be  considered  as  the  heir  apparent,  was  taken  a  few 
months  previous  to  our  declaring  war  against  the  Burmahs. 
He  was  very  young ;  his  mother  had  been  killed,  and  he  yet 
required  partial  nourishment  He  was  brought  to  Rangoon, 
established  in  one  of  the  best  houses  in  the  place,  and  an 
edict  was  sent  forth  from  the  capital,  ordering  that  twenty- 
four  of  the  most  healthy  young  married  women  should  be 
dedicated  to  his  wants,  and  if  they  fell  off  in  powers  of 
nourishment,  be  replaced  by  others.  This  was  considered  an 
honour — for  were  they  not  nursing  a  god?  Major  Canning, 
the  political  agent,  who  went  to  see  this  curious  spectacle, 
described  it  to  me  as  follows :  "  The  animal  was  not  above 
three  feet  and  a  few  inches  high,  its  colour  was  a  dirty  grev, 
rather  than  white ;  it  was  very  healthy,  playful,  and  in  good 
spirits.  When  I  went  into  the  room,  which  was  very  spacious, 
and  built  of  teakwood,  the  twenty-four  nurses  were  sitting  or 
lying  on  mats  about  the  room,  some  playing  at  draughts  and 
other  games,  others  working ;  the  elephant  walking  about, 
looking  at  them,  and  what  they  were  doing,  as  if  he  under- 
stood all  about  it.  After  a  short  time,  the  little  deity  felt 
hungry,  and  with  his  trunk  he  pushed  some  of  the  women, 
but  to  annoy  him  they  would  not  yield  to  his  solicitations. 
When  he  became  angry,  and  was  too  rough  for  them,  they 
submitted,  and  he  put  his  trunk  round  their  waists  in  the 
most  affectionate  manner,  while  he  was  supplying  himself."  I 
did  not  see  the  animal  myself,  as  immediately  that  they  heard 
of  our  arrival  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  they  despatched 
him,  under  a  strong  guard,  to  a  place  of  security.  But  I 
should  like  to  ascertain  hereafter,  whether  his  nurture  made 
him  a  more  reasonable  being  than  are  elephants  in  general, 
90 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

How  one's  thoughts  fly  away  over  time  and  space  !  What 
a  rush  of  incidents  crowd  into  my  memory,  merely  from 
having  mentioned  the  circumstance  of  the  white  elephant. 
I  did  once  intend  to  have  written  a  narrative  of  what  passed 
during  our  sojourn  in  that  country,  for  I  saw  more  of  the 
inhabitants  than  most  people ;  but  others  have  forestalled 
me,  and  it  is  now  too  late.  Nevertheless,  it  will  perhaps 
amuse  the  reader  if,  without  entering  into  the  military 
details,  I  mention  a  few  of  the  operations  and  scenes  which 
then  occurred.  It  shall  be  so  then,  and  we  will  discourse  a 
little  about  the  Burmahs. 

An  Armenian  merchant  who  resided  there  told  me  a  ttory 
one  day  which  was  curious.  The  King  of  Pegu  was  possessed 
of  the  most  splendid  ruby  in  the  world,  both  as  to  size  and 
colour.  This  was  well  known  ;  it  was  the  boast  of  the  nation. 
When  the  Burmahs  subdued  the  kingdom  of  Pegu,  the  old 
king,  with  all  his  family,  were  taken  prisoners,  vast  treasure 
was  also  captured,  but  the  great  ruby  was  not  to  be  found, 
notwithstanding  the  torture  and  beheading  of  thousands. 
With  the  usual  barbarity  of  those  countries,  the  old  king,  a 
miserable,  paralytic  little  man,  was  stripped  naked  and  con- 
fined in  an  iron  cage,  which  I  saw  when  I  was  at  Rangoon. 
In  this  confinement  he  lived  for  ten  or  twelve  years,  every 
festival  day  being  brought  out  and  exposed  to  the  derision 
of  the  populace.  At  last  he  died,  and  his  body  was  thrown 
out  to  be  devoured  by  the  dogs  and  birds  of  prey.  One 
of  the  soldiers  who  assisted  to  drag  the  body  out  of  the 
cage,  turned  it  over  with  his  foot,  and  perceived  that  his 
right  hand  grasped  a  lump  of  dantma  (a  sort  of  pitch),  which 
curiosity  induced  the  Burrnah  to  force  out  \\iih  the  point 
of  his  spear.  This  had  been  observed  before,  but  the 
Burmahs,  who  are  very  superstitious,  and  carry  about  them 
all  sorts  of  charms,  imagined  it  to  be  a  charm  for  the  paralysis 
or  palsy  with  which  he  was  afflicted,  and,  therefore,  had 
allowed  him  to  retain  it.  But  when  the  Burmah  took  it  up, 
the  weight  of  it  convinced  him  that  it  was  not  all  damma ; 
he  examined  it,  and  found  that  it  was  the  great  ruby  of  the 
Pegu  kingdom  which  had  been  lost,  and  which  the  old  man 
had  for  so  many  years,  in  a  state  of  nudity  and  incarceration, 
held  in  his  left  hand.  I  asked  one  of  the  Burmah  chiefs 
whether  this  ruby,  now  in  the  possession  of  the  King  of  Ava, 
91 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

was  as  fine  as  represented :  his  answer  was  in  truly  Eastern 
hyperbole — "  Dip  it  in  the  Irrawaddy,"  said  he  (that  is,  an 
enormous  river  seven  hundred  miles  long,  and  in  many 
parts  several  miles  broad),  "and  the  whole  water  will  turn 
to  blood." 

I  have  said  that  the  Burmahs  are  very  superstitious :  they 
have  a  great  variety  of  charms  which  they  wear  about  their 
persons,  but  there  is  one  custom  of  theirs  which  is  very 
singular.  They  polish  rubies ;  that  is,  without  cutting  them 
in  facettes,  but  merely  the  stone,  whatever  its  primitive 
shape,  is  rubbed  down  on  every  side  until  it  is  perfectly 
smooth.  They  then  make  an  incision  in  the  flesh,  generally 
the  arm  or  leg,  put  in  the  ruby,  and  allow  the  skin  to  heal 
over  it,  so  that  the  stone  remains  there.  Soldiers  and  sailors 
in  search  of  plunder  will  find  out  anything,  and  this  practice 
of  the  Burmahs  was  soon  discovered  ;  and  after  the  assault 
and  carrying  of  a  stockade,  you  would  see  the  men  passing 
their  hands  over  the  bodies,  and  immediately  they  felt  a 
rising  in  the  limb,  out  with  their  knives  and  cut  in  for  the 
rubies.  Indeed,  the  plunder  was  more  considerable  than 
might  be  imagined,  for  every  Burmah  carried  all  his  wealth 
about  his  person. 

Another  singular  custom  arising  from  their  superstition 
prevails  among  this  people.  The  king  has  a  corps  denomi- 
nated Invulnerablcs,  whose  ranks  are  filled  up  in  this  manner : 
when  a  criminal  is  condemned  to  death  for  certain  offences, 
such  as  robbery,  he  is  permitted  to  challenge  as  an  invulner- 
able. This  is  proved  by  his  standing  at  a  certain  distance 
from  several  men  who  fire  at  him  with  ball.  Should  he  not 
be  wounded  or  killed,  he  is  pronounced  an  invulnerable  and 
enrolled  in  the  corps.  In  every  stockade  we  attacked  there 
were  always  one  or  two  of  these  men,  and  they  really 
appeared  to  believe  in  their  own  powers.  They  generally 
stood  above  the  timbers  of  the  stockade,  dancing  and  caper- 
ing as  the  boats  advanced,  and  continued  their  extravagance 
amidst  a  shower  of  bullets,  exposing  their  persons  in  a  most 
undaunted  manner.  There  was  one  fellow,  dressed  in  a 
short  red  jacket,  and  nothing  else  except  the  cloth  round 
his  loins,  who  was  well  known  to  our  men;  they  called  him 
Happy  Jack,  from  the  capers  which  he  used  to  cut,  and  some- 
how or  another  it  was  his  goo:l  fortune  never  to  be  hit,  at 
92 


DIAftY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

least,  not  that  we  knew  of,  for  taking  stockade  after  stockade, 
at  every  fresh  attack  there  was  Happy  Jack  to  be  seen 
capering  and  shouting  as  usual,  and  never  ceasing  to  expose 
himself  until  the  troops  had  landed  and  were  about  to  scale 
the  fortress.  It  was  quite  amusing  to  hear  the  men  shout 
out  with  laughter,  "  By  heavens,  there's  Happy  Jack  again." 
1  hope  he  is  alive  at  this  moment ;  at  all  events,  he  deserves 
to  be. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

SPA. 

JL  ES,  now  Spa  is  agreeable  :  we  have  no  redouble  open  with 
fools  losing  their  money,  no  English  passants  looking  after 
amusement,  no  valetudinarians  drinking  the  poupon,  no  Spa 
boxes  crowding  every  window  :  we  are  now  as  a  Spa  should 
be,  a  coterie  of  houses  in  a  ravine,  surrounded  by  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Ardennes,  crowding  and  shoving  up  together  in 
mutual  protection  against  the  deep  snow  and  the  forest  wolves. 
There  is  something  new  in  this  :  most  of  the  houses  are  shut 
up ;  the  shop  windows  are  all  bare  ;  the  snow  is  two  feet 
deep  in  the  streets ;  the  mountains  on  every  side  are  white ; 
the  icicles  hang  upon  the  leafless  boughs,  and  the  rivulets  are 
enchained.  All  is  one  drear  blank  ;  and  except  the  two- 
horse  diligence  which  heaves  slowly  in  sight  three  or  four 
hours  past  its  time,  and  the  post  (which  is  now  delivered  at 
nine  o'clock  instead  of  noon) :  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an 
ai'rival :  the  boys  slide  upon  their  little  sledges  down  the  hills  ; 
the  cattle  are  driven  home  ;  the  church  clock  strikes ;  and 
unless  we  are  enlivened  by  the  crowd  assembled  round  the 
countryman  who  appears  with  the  carcass  of  a  wolf  which  he 
has  been  fortunate  enough  to  kill,  we  are  all  quiet,  monotony, 
and  peace :  in  fact,  Spa,  now  that  it  is  a  desert,  has  become 
to  me,  at  least,  agreeable. 

They  say  this  hard  winter  promises  plenty  of  wolves  ;  if  so, 
I  recommend  those  who  are  fon -1  of  excitement  to  come  here. 
Indeed,  it  will  be  profitable,  for  if  they  are  active  huntsmen, 
they  can  pay  their  expenses.  A  dead  horse  costs- little,  and 
in  Spa,  as  they  give  very  little  to  the  horses  to  eat  in  summer, 
and  nothing  at  all  in  the  winter,  they  die  fast.  You  have 
only  to  drag  the  carcass  to  an  outhouse  at  a  little  distance 
1)3 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

from  the  town,  and  with  your  rifle  watch  during  the  night 
The  wolves  will  come  down  to  prey  upon  the  carrion,  and  it 
is  hard  if  you  do  not  kill  your  couple  during  the  night,  and 
then  you  are  rewarded  by  the  commune.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  price  is  now,  but  when  the  King  of  Holland  was  in 
possession  of  Belgium  it  was  one  hundred  francs  for  a  male, 
and  three  hundred  francs  for  a  female  wolf.  Now  a  brace  a 
night,  four  hundred  francs,  or  sixteen  pounds,  is  not  a  bad 
night's  earning :  in  Spa  it  would  keep  a  half-pay  officer  for 
three  months.  There  is  a  curious  story  hei-e,  proving  the 
sagacity  of  a  wolf  which  came  down  an  hour  before  dusk  into 
the  town,  and  made  off  with  a  child  of  two  years  old  in  her 
mouth.  The  cry  was  raised,  and  the  pursuit  immediate. 
After  following  her  track  for  many  miles,  she  gained  upon 
them,  it  became  quite  dark,  and  the  people  returned  home- 
wards, melancholy  at  the  fate  of  the  poor  child.  When  they 
were  about  half  way  back,  they  heard  the  wail  of  an  infant, 
and,  guided  by  it,  they  arrived  at  a  thick  bush,  where  they 
found  the  child  alive  and  unhurt.  The  wolf,  finding  that  her 
pursuers  gained  upon  her,  had  deposited  the  child  there, 
intending  to  return  and  make  a  meal  of  it  upon  a  more 
favourable  opportunity. 

We  have  had  nothing  to  excite  us  within  these  last  few 
days  but  the  death  and  burial  of  an  old  curate.  He  died  in 
all  the  odour  of  sanctity  three  days  ago,  and  was  buried 
yesterday.  He  was  not  loved  or  even  liked,  for  he  wanted 
that  greatest  of  all  gifts — charity.  His  situation  was  worth, 
with  offerings,  six  thousand  francs  a  year, — a  large  sum  in 
this  country  :  but  he  did  not  give  to  the  poor ;  he  exacted 
from  them,  and  they  religiously  obeyed  him,  no  one  killing  a 
pig,  or  anything  else,  without  a  present  of  part  of  it  to  the 
curate.  When  the  old  man  was  told  that  he  could  not  live, 
the  ruling  passion  still  governed  him.  He  sent  for  a  person 
to  dispose  of  for  him  the  sundry  pieces  of  pork  which  he  had 
gathered  as  presents,  then  took  the  extreme  unction,  and 
died.  His  will  is  not  known,  but  he  is  supposed  to  be  very 
rich,  and  whether  he  leaves  his  wealth  to  some  nephews  or 
to  support  a  hospital  here  which  is  at  present  without  funds, 
is  a  question  of  some  interest.  He  was  buried  in  great 
parade  and  procession,  followed  by  hundreds  holding  candles. 
He  was  dressed  in  his  best,  and  everv  one  said  he  never 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

looked  so  clean  or  so  well  in  his  life.  He  was  carried  on  an 
open  brancard,  with  his  canonical  hat  on  his  head ;  the  snow 
fell  fast  and  settled  on  his  face  and  clothes,  but  he  felt  it  not. 
The  funeral  was  as  cold  as  his  charity,  the  thermometer 
being  exactly  13°  below  the  freezing  point.  Except  the 
procession  of  the  dead  'curate  and  of  a  dead  wolf,  we  have 
had  nothing  to  interest  us  for  the  last  ten  days. 

But  I  promised  to  talk  about  the  Burmahs.  There  have 
been  two  or  three  accounts  of  the  military  movements,  but 
there  has  been  no  inquiry  or  examination  into  the  character  of 
the  people  which,  in  my  opinion,  is  of  more  importance  than 
is  generally  supposed  ;  for  although  the  East  India  Company 
may  imagine  that  they  have  done  with  the  Burmahs,,  it  is  my 
conviction  that  the  Burmahs  have  not  done  with  them,  and 
even  I  may  live  to  witness  the  truth  of  my  assertion. 

It  certainly  ic  a  point  of  some  interest  to  ascertain  from 
whence  the  Burmah  nation  originally  came :  that  they  are 
not  aborigines  I  think  most  certain.  They  are  surrounded 
by  the  Cochin  Chinese,  the  Chinese,  and  the  Hindoos,  all 
races  of  inferior  stature  and  effeminate  in  person,  with  little 
or  no  beard.  Now,  the  Burmahs  are  a  very  powerful  race, 
very  muscular  in  their  limbs ;  possessing  great  strength  and 
energy :  generally  speaking,  I  should  say  that  they  are  rather 
taller  than  Europeans.  They  have  the  high  cheek  bones  of 
the  Tartar,  but  not  the  small  eyes  ;  they  have  strong  hair  and 
beards,  and  certainly  would  remind  you  of  a  cross  between 
the  Jew  and  the  Tartar.  This  is  singular ;  and  it  gave  the 
idea  to  some  of  those  who  are  fond  of  indulging  in  theory 
that  they  might  be  the  remnants  of  that  portion  of  the  Jews 
who,  when  permitted  to  leave  Babylon,  instead  of  going  east 
with  the  others,  bent  their  course  to  the  westward,  and  were 
never  spoken  of  afterwards.  But  the  only  props  they  had  to 
this  argument  were  the  appearance  of  the  people,  the  weight 
in  silver  being  called  the  tekel  or  shekel,  and  the  great  pagoda 
having  the  name  of  the  Dagon  Pagoda.  At  least,  I  heard 
of  no  more  to  support  the  argument  but  those  three,  which 
can  hardly  be  sufficient,  although  the  coincidence  of  the  two 
words  is  singular. 

The  Burmahs  are  semi-barbarous :  but  this  term  must  be 
used  in  the  most  favourable  light ;  because,  surrounded  on 
every  side  by  people  who  are  wedded  to  their  own  customs, 
95 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

the  Burmahs  have  a  liberality  and  a  desire  to  improve,  which 
is  very  remarkable.  1  never  met  with  any  Burmah,  not  even 
a  lad,  who  could  not  read  and  write ;  they  allow  any  form  of 
religion  to  be  made  use  of.  and  churches  of  any  description 
to  be  built  by  foreigners,  but  they  do  not  like  missionaries 
making  converts  of  their  own  people  ;  for  as  the  king  is  the 
head  of  the  religion,  conversion  is  a  breach  of  allegiance. 
One  of  the  missionaries  had  an  audience  with  the  king,  and 
demanded  permission  to  make  proselytes.  The  king  replied 
that  the  missionary  might  convert  as  many  as  he  pleased,  but 
that  he  would  cut  all  their  heads  off  afterwards.  The  mis- 
sionary had  not  much  trouble,  when  this  answer  was  made 
known,  in  counting  the  heads  of  his  proselytes.  In  their  own 
religion,  which  is  Buddhism,  the  Burmahs  appear  to  be  very 
relax  ;  it  is  too  absurd  for  the  energy  of  their  minds.  Those 
who  enter  the  priesthood  wear  a  yellow  dress ;  but  if  a  priest 
at  any  time  feels  disposed  to  quit  his  profession,  he  is  at 
liberty  so  to  do.  All  he  has  to  do  is  to  throw  off  his  yellow 
garment :  but  at  the  same  time  he  can  never  resume  it.  The 
Burmahs  are  superstitious  about  charms,  but  are  not  super- 
stitious on  religious  points.  In  fact,  there  is  very  little 
religion  among  them,  and  had  we,  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
instead  of  demanding  a  crore  of  rupees,  insisted  that  they 
should  embrace  Christianity,  the  king  would  have  given  the 
order,  and  the  whole  nation  would  have  nominally  been 
Christians.  I  once  asked  a  Burmah  soldier  what  was  his  idea 
of  a  future  state.  His  idea  of  bliss  was  singular — "  I  shall  be 
turned  into  a  buffalo,  and  shall  lie  down  in  a  meadow  of  grass 
higher  than  my  head,  and  eat  all  day  long,  and  there  won't 
be  a  single  mosquito  to  annoy  me."  While  on  the  subject  of 
religion,  I  may  here  observe,  that  at  the  capture  of  Rangoon 
I  entered  a  Chinese  temple  ;  the  altar-piece,  if  I  may  use  the 
term,  was  the  Ganesa  of  the  Hindoos,  but  not  seated  on  the 
lotus  leaf,  but  on  the  Chinese  rat.  On  each  side  of  this  were 
two  little  candelabras,  formed  of  the  Egyptian  ibis,  holding 
the  oil  cups  in  its  beak.  I  also  found  the  Hounyman,  or 
monkey  god  of  the  Hindoos,  and  Buddhist  figures.  I  once 
observed  some  sepoys  playing  and  laughing  at  a  bronze  image 
they  had  picked  up  at  the  pagoda  of  Syriam,  and  on  examin- 
ing it,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  was  a  figure  of  the 
Egyptian  Isis,  with  her  hand  raised,  and  her  person  in  the 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

position  described  as  the  correct  one  when  blessing  the 
world.  The  art  of  embalming  appears  to  be  known  to  the 
Burmahs,  and  is  occasionally  practised  by  the  priests.  At 
the  capture  of  the  old  Portuguese  fort  at  Syriam,  I  found, 
not  far  from  it,  a  sort  of  canopied  shed,  decorated  with  carv- 
ing, cut  paper,  and  tinsel,  and  supported  by  four  pillars,  like 
a  bedstead.  Below  lay  the  body  of  a  priest,  embalmed  and 
gilt.  I  intended  to  have  brought  this  home,  but  before  I 
arrived  there,  I  found  one  of  my  marines,  a  graceless  dog 
without  religion  or  any  other  good  quality,  very  busy  ham- 
mering the  mummy  to  pieces  with  the  butt  end  of  nis 
musket.  I  was  very  angry,  and  ordered  him  to  desist.  In 
excuse,  he  replied  that  it  was  an  abominable  molten  image, 
and  it  was  his  duty,  as  a  good  Christian,  to  destroy  it — the 
only  evidence  of  Christianity  ever  witnessed  on  that  fellow's 
part.  On  examination,  I  found  that  the  body  had  been 
wrapped  in  sundry  clothes,  and,  like  the  ark  of  Noah,  pitched 
within  and  without :  over  the  clothes  was  a  coat  of  danmia, 
then  of  chunam,  and  lastly  it  was  gilt ;  the  head  of  the 
mummy  was  fictitious,  and  formed  of  a  cocoa-nut,  the  real 
skull  being  where,  in  the  mummy,  would  have  appeared  to 
have  been  the  breast  of  the  body.  It  did  not  smell  much, 
but  there  were  a  great  many  small  scarabei  inside,  and  it 
was  so  mutilated  that  I  did  not  remove  it.  The  Burmahs 
are  cleanly  in  their  houses,  which  generally  are  raised  from 
the  ground  a  few  feet,  so  as  to  allow  the  pigs,  which  are  the 
scavengers  of  the  town,  to  walk  under.  They  have  houses 
of  brick,  or  stone  and  mortar,  such  as  the  custom-house  at 
Rangoon,  and  one  or  two  others;  but  the  most  substantial 
houses  are  usually  built  of  thick  teak  plank.  The  smaller 
houses  and  cottages  are  built  of  bamboo,  the  floors  and 
walls  being  woven  like  wicker-work :  the  cleanliness  and 
the  beauty  of  these  houses  when  new  are  very  remarkable, 
and  what  is  still  more  so,  the  rapidity  with  which  they  are 
built.  I  have  known  an  officer  order  a  house  to  be  built 
of  three  rooms,  with  doors  and  windows  to  each,  and  of  a 
comfortable  size,  and  three  or  four  Burmahs  will  complete 
this  house  in  a  day,  and  thatch  the  roof  over.  In  another 
point  the  Burmahs  shoM-  a  degree  of  civilisation  which  might 
be  an  example  to  the  northern  Athens — to  every  house  there 
is  a  very  neat  and  clean  cloaca. 

97  O 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

The  government,  like  all  in  Asia,  is  most  despotic  ;  and  the 
people  have  the  faults  which  are  certain  to  be  generated  by 
despotism — but  not  to  that  degree  which  might  be  expected. 
They  have  their  hereditary  nobility,  and  the  orders  of  it  are 
very  clearly  defined.  They  consist  of  gold  chains,  worn  round 
the  neck,  with  four  plates  or  chased  bosses  dividing  them  ; 
the  lowest  order  wears  the  bosses  linked  together  by  thi'ee 
chains,  the  next  highest  in  degree  with  six,  the  next  nine, 
and  the  last  and  highest  order  has  twelve ;  the  king  only 
wears  twenty-four  chains.  The  use  of  gold  and  silver,  as 
drinking  cups,  &c.,  is  only  permitted  to  the  nobility.  They 
are  very  clever  in  chasing  of  metals,  and  they  have  a  descrip- 
tion of  work  in  glass  and  enamel,  quite  their  own,  with  which 
they  decorate  the  temples,  houses  of  the  priests,  and  coffers 
containing  the  sacred  volumes.  Their  ornamental  writings  in 
the  Pali  language,  a  variety  of  the  Sanscrit,  known  only  to 
the  priests,  are  also  very  beautiful — especially  that  upon  long 
leaves  of  ivory.  Upon  the  whole,  their  manufactures  are 
superior  to  all  around  them,  except  perhaps  the  Chinese. 

The  women  are  small,  and  delicately  formed,  in  pro}x>rtion 
to  the  men  ;  they  are  not  shut  up,  but  go  where  they  please  ; 
their  dress  is  becoming;  they  braid  the  hair  with  flowers, 
and  they  are  much  fairer  than  would  be  supposed.  Those 
•who  keep  much  within  doors  are  nearly  as  white  as  Europeans. 
They  have  a  singular  custom  of  putting  a  patch  of  white 
chunam  on  the  cheek-bone,  something  in  opposition  to  the 
black  patches  which  used  formerly  to  be  worn  by  our  belles ; 
and  it  is  intended  to  show  how  near  they  approach  to  white. 
Indeed,  when  the  men  of  the  lower  class,  who  arc  exposed 
all  day  to  the  sun,  remove  their  garments,  it  is  singular  to 
witness  how  many  shades  lighter  they  are  in  that  part  of 
their  bodies  which  is  covered  up.  Usually,  the  men  have 
but  one  wife,  but  occasionally  there  are  supernumeraries. 

The  laws  of  the  Burmahs  appear  to  be  good,  but,  as  in  all 
despotic  countries,  they  are  not  acted  upon,  unless  it  pleases 
the  ruler.  Slavery  of  a  certain  species  is  allowed.  Should 
one  man  be  in  debt  to  another,  he  is  summoned  before  the 
chief;  if  he  states  his  inability  to  pay,  he  is  asked  how  many 
children  he  has,  and  according  to  the  debt,  so  are  his  children 
given  in  bond  slavery  to  his  creditor,  who  writes  off  a  certain 
sum  every  year  until  they  are  free.  If  he  has  no  children, 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

his  wife,  or  himself  perhaps,  will  be  bonded  in  the  same 
manner.  But  in  this  case,  where  ill-treatment  can  be  proved, 
the  bondage  will  be  removed ;  and  further,  any  person  so 
bonded  may,  at  his  or  her  wish,  remove  to  the  service  of 
another  master,  provided  they  can  find  one  who  will  pay  to 
the  creditor  the  amount  still  due,  and  thus  finish  the  time  of 
servitude  under  one  whom  they  like  better.  These  bonds 
are  all  in  writing,  and  must  be  produced.  Some  of  our 
military  officers  released  several  of  the  young  women  from 
their  slavery. 

Silling  donm  in  your  presence  is,  among  the  Burmese,  a 
mark  of  respect.  Every  poor  man  who  is  sent  for  imme- 
diately drops  down  on  his  hams  in  the  comer  of  the  room, 
or  at  the  portal.  The  use  of  the  cocoa,  or  betel  nut,  is 
universal  among  the  men,  but  not  so  common  with  the 
women  until  they  grow  old.  The  consequence  is,  that  the 
teeth  of  the  men  are  quite  black  and  decayed,  while  those  of 
the  young  women  are  very  good. 

The  most  remarkable  feature  in  the  character  of  the 
Burmahs  is  their  good  temper;  I  think  they  are  the  most 
even-tempered  race  I  ever  met  with.  They  are  always  gay, 
always  content  under  any  privation.  I  had,  as  will  be  seen 
hereafter,  more  opportunities  of  seeing  into  the  character  of 
this  people  than  others  had,  for  we  mixed  with  them  in  amity 
for  some  weeks.  They  are  very  fond  of  marionettes  and 
puppet  playing,  and  are  very  amusing  mimics.  They  work 
very  hard,  and  with  the  greatest  cheerfulness.  They  have 
a  high  respect  for  the  English,  or  the  white  faces,  as  they 
call  us  ;  and  the  superiority  of  our  warlike  instruments, 
and  our  ships,  was  a  subject  of  wonder,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  of  most  careful  examination.  They  perceive  how 
far  they  are  behind  us,  and  are  most  anxious  to  improve. 
For  this  reason,  joined  to  others,  it  was  a  pity  that  we 
ever  made  war  with  the  Burmahs  :  they  had  made  an  easy 
conquest  of  those  around  them,  and  were  satisfied  with 
their  supposed  superiority,  but  now  they  are  not,  for  they 
are  active  and  enterprising,  fond  of  war,  and  will  not  be 
content  until  they  have  improved  their  system.  Twenty 
years  hence  we  shall  find  the  Burmahs  a  much  more 
formidable  nation  than  they  are  at  preseiit,  for  they  have 
every  quality  necessary  to  become  the  first  nation  in  the 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

East :  indeed,  when  we  consider  with  what  weapons  they 
defended  themselves,  and  the  nature  of  the  warfare,  it 
is  not  a  little  to  their  credit  that  they  held  out  for  nearly 
three  years  against  the  power  of  Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

_,  February  1836. 

JL  HE  Burmahs  are  decidedly  a  brave  nation ;  the  govern- 
ment being  despotic,  their  rulers  are  cruel,  but  the  people  are 
not.  I  state  this,  as  cowardice  and  cruelty  usually  go  hand 
in  li.-iiid.  Good  temper  and  generosity  are  the  prominent 
features  in  their  character — excellent  materials  to  work  upon 
in  judicious  hands.  I  witnessed  acts  of  courage  in  the  early 
part  of  the  war,  before  the  Burmahs  found  out  how  impossible 
it  was  to  cope  with  our  superior  arms,  which  were  most  surpris- 
ing, and  which  excited  our  admiration.  They  are  peculiarly 
a  warlike  nation ;  indeed,  they  are  fond  of  war.  Every  man 
is  a  soldier,  and  when  ordered  out  to  join  the  ranks,  obeys 
without  receiving  any  pay,  providing  his  own  arms.  This 
fact  at  once  establishes  that  they  are  inclined  to  war.  Their 
arms  generally  consist  of  a  double-handed  sword,  a  weapon 
of  great  force,  and  very  large  spears ;  but  every  one  will 
possess  a  musket  if  he  can,  and  if  it  has  not  a  lock,  he  will 
fire  it  with  a  match.  It  is  in  this  point  that  the  Burmahs 
are  so  deficient  in  arms  :  we  used  to  consider  it  a  very 
courageous  act  to  venture  to  fire  off  a  Burmese  musket, 
they  were  in  such  a  wretched  condition :  and,  to  crown 
all,  every  man  makes  his  own  gunpowder.  Now,  it  may  be 
easily  imagined  what  stuff  this  must  be ;  as,  previous  to  an 
expected  combat,  «ach  Burmah  sits  down  and  composes 
the  article  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  and  belief.  The 
consequences  are,  that  when  these  muskets  do  go  off  (and 
it  is  ten  to  one  they  do  not),  it  is  again  ten  to  one  that 
the  bullet  falls  short,  from  the  inefficacy  of  the  powder. 
There  is  another  singular  fact,  and  one  which  proves  that 
they  have  been  used  to  muskets  but  a  short  time :  it  is, 
that  they  have  no  bullet  moulds  or  leaden  bullets.  All 
their  bullets  are  of  iron,  hammered  as  round  as  they  can 
hammer  them  at  the  forge  ;  of  course,  the  windage  pro- 
100 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 

duced  by  this  imperfect  shape  occasions  it  to  deviate  much 
from  its  intended  direction. 

The  guns  on  their  stockades  and  war-boats  are  equally 
defective,  from  bad  powder  and  the  hammered  iron  bullets. 
It  is  difficult  to  know  where  they  could  have  collected  such 
a  curious  assemblage.  Sometimes  you  will  fall  in  with  a 
small  brass  piece  of  exquisite  Spanish  manufacture,  at  others 
you  will  find  them  of  the  strangest  forms  that  can  be  con- 
ceived. I  rather  think  they  were  purchased,  or  taken  as  a 
part  of  the  duties  on  vessels  trading  to  Rangoon.  I  recollect 
once,  at  the  first  taking  of  a  stockade,  we  knocked  off  the 
trunnions  of  an  old  iron  gun,  and  left  it  there  as  useless. 
The  Burtnahs  re-occupied  the  stockade,  arid  we  had  to  take  it 
a  second  time,  when  we  found  that  they  had  most  ingeniously 
supplied  the  want  of  trunnions  with  iron  hoops  and  rivets, 
and  the  gun  was  fired  at  us  before  we  entered.  At  another 
time,  we  entered  a  stockade  which  had  kept  up  a  brisk  fire 
for  a  few  minutes,  and  to  our  surprise  found  that  they  had 
made  wooden  guns,  very  well  bound  and  braced  with  iron 
hoops.  Of  course  these  guns  would  not  fire  more  than  two 
or  three  shots  each,  as  the  touch-holes  became  inflamed,  and 
were  soon  t.o  large  as  to  render  the  guns  unserviceable  ;  but 
I  mention  these  points  to  prove  the  perseverance  of  these 
people,  and  the  efforts  they  made  in  their  own  defence. 
After  the  first  campaign  it  is  true  that  they  deserted,  and 
the  levies  were  made  by  force  ;  but  the  reason  of  this,  for  I 
inquired  into  it,  Mas  not  that  they  had  any  objection  to  fight, 
but  that,  fighting  without  pay,  they  wanted  to  go  home  and 
put  the  seed  into  the  ground,  as  otherwise  their  wives  and 
families  would  starve. 

The  Burmah  war-boats  are  very  splendid  craft,  pulling  from 
eighty  to  one  hundred  oars ;  the  Burmahs  manage  them  very 
dexterously,  and  will  pull  them  from  seven  to  eight  miles  an 
hour.  They  have  a  war-boat  dedicated  to  the  deity,  which 
brought  intelligence  that  saved  the  nation  at  the  time  of  the 
war  with  the  empire  of  Pegu,  in  a  space  of  time  so  short  as 
almost  to  appear  incredible. 

As  I  before  observed,  the  gun  mounted  on  the  boat's  bow 

is  of  little  effect,  but  their  spears  are  really  formidable.     At  a 

night  attack  upon  some  of  our  vessels,  anchored  off  a  stockade 

which  they  wanted  to  regain,  I  had  an  evidence  of  the  force 

101 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

with  which  they  are  thrown.  The  sides  of  the  vessels  were 
covered  with  them,  sticking  out  like  porcupines'  quills,  and 
they  had  entered  the  plank  with  such  force  that  it  required 
a  very  strong  arm  to  pull  them  out  again.  We  lost  some 
men  by  them;  the  effect  of  a  hundred  spears  hurtling  through 
the  air  at  the  same  time  was  singularly  appalling  to  our  men, 
who  were  not  accustomed  to  the  sound,  especially  during  the 
night.  I  heard  several  of  the  sailors  observe  afterwards  that 
they  "did  not  like  that  at  all,"  and  I  am  sure  they  would 
have  infinitely  preferred  to  have  been  met  with  firearms. 
Some  of  these  spears  were  sixteen  feet  long,  with  an  iron 
head,  sharp  at  both  sides,  weighing  from  twelve  to  fourteen 
pounds.  I  have  seen  bows  and  arrows  in  the  possession  of 
the  Burmahs,  but  never  have  observed  that  they  used  them 
in  their  conflicts  with  us.  They  appeared  to  despise  them. 
The  system  of  warfare  and  defence  pursued  by  these  people 
is  undoubtedly  excellent  for  the  peculiarities  of  the  country. 
Their  stockades  are  usually  built  of  any  thick  teak  timber, 
or  rather  squared  trees,  which  are  much  too  strong  to  be 
penetrated  by  any  other  than  battering  cannon,  and,  in  con- 
sequence, were  invariably  carried  by  escalade.  Some  of 
them  are  built  of  bamboos  running  from  a  foot  to  two  feet 
in  diameter.  These  are  equally  strong,  with  the  peculiarity 
that  if  you  fire  cannon  at  them  the  bamboos  yield,  admit  the 
shot,  and  then  close  again.  If  these  stockades  are  not  close 
to  the  river  side,  they  usually  have  a  deep  ditch  round  them, 
and  are  further  protected  by  what  was  more  serious  to  us 
than  the  escalading,  which  were  abbatis  of  pointed  bamboos 
stuck  in  a  slanting  direction  in  the  ground.  The  slight 
wounds  made  by  these  bamboos  brought  on  lock-jaw,  and 
too  often  terminated  fatally.  In  the  attacks  upon  us  at 
Rangoon  they  made  their  approaches  with  some  degree  of 
military  skill,  throwing  up  trenches  as  they  advanced.  Their 
fire-rafts  on  such  a  rapid  river  were  also  formidable.  They 
have  wells  of  petroleum  up  the  country ;  their  rafts  were 
very  large,  and  on  them,  here  and  there,  were  placed  old 
canoes  filled  with  this  inflammable  matter.  When  on  fire, 
it  blazed  as  high  as  our  maintop,  throwing  out  flames,  heat, 
and  stink  quite  enough  to  drive  any  one  away. 

I    have   mentioned   their   mode   of  warfare  and   their  de- 
ficiencies, to  prove   that  if  the   Burmahs  had  been  as  well 
102 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

provided  with  every  species  of  arms  equal  to  our  own,  the 
country  would  not  have  been  so  soon  subjugated  as  it  was. 
Their  system  of  defence  was  good,  their  bravery  was  un- 
doubted, but  they  had  no  effective  weapons.  I  strongly 
suspect  that  they  will,  now  that  they  have  been  taught  their 
inferiority,  use  every  means  to  obtain  them  ;  and  if  so,  they 
will  really  become  a  formidable  nation.  As  one  proof  of 
their  courage,  I  will  mention  that  at  every  stockade  there  is 
a  look-out  man,  perched  on  a  sort  of  pole,  about  ten  feet  or 
more  clear  of  the  upper  part  of  the  stockade,  in  a  situation 
completely  exposed.  I  have  often  observed  these  men,  and 
it  was  not  till  the  cannonade  had  fairly  commenced  on  both 
sides,  that  they  came  down,  and  when  they  did,  it  was  with- 
out hurry ;  indeed,  I  may  say,  in  a  most  leisurely  and  in- 
different manner.  Of  their  invulnerables  and  their  antics  I 
have  already  spoken. 

In  countries  governed  despotically,  life  is  not  so  much 
valued  as  it  is  in  others.  The  very  knowledge  that  it  may 
be  taken  in  a  moment  at  the  will  of  the  rulers,  renders 
even  the  cowardly  comparatively  indifferent.  Having  been 
accustomed  from  our  earliest  years  to  anticipate  an  event, 
when  it  actually  arrives  we  meet  it  with  composure  and 
indifference.  The  lad  in  England  who  is  brought  up  to 
thieving,  and  who  is  continually  reminded  by  his  parents 
that  he  must  be  hung  before  he  is  twenty,  goes  to  the  gallows 
when  his  turn  comes  with  much  sang  Jroid.  So  it  is  in  a 
despotic  country,  where  the  people  witness  the  heads  of 
their  companions  roll  on  the  ground,  and  surmise  how  soon 
their  own  turn  will  come.  I  had  more  than  one  evidence  of 
this  during  my  stay.  In  one  instance  I  wished  to  obtain 
information  from  a  prisoner,  but  could  extract  none.  He  had 
been  sitting  between  the  cai'ronades  on  deck  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  some  of  the  men  or  officers  had  given  him 
a  bowl  of  grog  and  a  couple  of  cigars,  with  which  he  was 
busy  when  I  interrogated  him.  As  he  professetl  ignorance, 
I  told  him  that  if  he  would  not  give  me  the  desired  informa- 
tion, I  should  take  his  head  off;  and  I  sent  tor  the  sergeant 
of  marines,  who  appeared  with  two  of  his  party,  and  with 
his  drawn  sword.  We  called  him  out  from  between  the 
guns,  but  he  begged  through  the  interpreter  to  be  allowed 
to  finish  his  grog,  to  which  I  consented  :  when  that  was 
103 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

done,  he  was  again  ordered  out,  but  requested  leave  to  finish 
about  an  inch  of  cigar  which  remained  in  his  mouth.  To 
which  I  also  acceded,  not  being  in  a  particular  hurry  to  do 
that  which  I  never  intended  to  do.  During  all  this  the  man 
was  perfectly  composed,  and  did  not  show  the  least  alarm  at 
his  approaching  fate.  As  soon  as  the  cigar  was  finished, 
he  bound  his  long  hair  up  afresh,  and  made  preparation.  I 
again  asked  him  if  he  would  tell,  but  he  pleaded  ignorance, 
and  stepped  forward,  went  down  on  his  knees  and  took  oif 
the  cloth  from  about  his  loins,  which  he  spread  on  the  deck 
to  receive  his  head,  and  then,  putting  his  hands  on  the  deck, 
held  it  in  the  position  to  be  cut  off.  Not  a  muscle  trembled, 
for  I  watched  the  man  carefully.  He  was,  of  course,  re- 
manded, and  the  sailors  were  so  pleased  with  him  that 
he  went  on  shore  with  more  grog  and  more  tobacco  than 
he  had  probably  ever  seen  in  his  life. 

The  Burmahs  have,  however,  a  means  of  extracting  in- 
formation from  spies,  &c.,  which  I  never  saw  practised  by 
them,  although  it  was  borrowed  from  them  by  us.  It  was 
in  our  own  quartermaster-general's  office  that  I  witnessed 
this  species  of  torture,  so  simple  in  its  operation,  and  appar- 
ently so  dreadful  in  its  effects.  It  consists  in  giving  one 
single  blow  upon  the  region  of  the  heart,  so  as  to  stop  for 
some  seconds  the  whole  circulation.  The  way  by  which 
this  is  effected  is  as  follows : — the  man — the  Burmahs  are 
generally  naked  to  the  waist — is  made  to  sit  down  on  the 
•  floor;  another  man  stands  behind  him,  and  leaning  over 
him,  takes  a  very  exact  aim  with  his  sharp  bent  elbow  at 
the  precise  spot  over  his  heart,  and  then  strikes  a  blow 
which,  from  its  being  propelled  so  very  mechanically,  descends 
with  increased  force. 

The  effect  appears  dreadful ;  the  dark  hue  of  the  sufferer's 
face  turns  to  a  deadly  white,  the  perspiration  bursts  out 
from  his  forehead,  and  he  trembles  in  every  limb.  I  never 
witnessed  such  apparent  agony.  These  blows,  repeated  three 
or  four  times,  will  unman  the  most  resolute,  and  they  will 
call  for  death  as  a  favour. 

There  is  one  point  which  must  not  be  overlooked  by  the 
Indian  Government,  and  which,  connected  with  what  I  have 
already  mentioned,  makes  the  Burmese  nation  more  formid- 
able ;  it  is,  the  great  contempt  they  have  for  the  sepoys, 
104 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

And  what  is  equally  true,  the  fears  which  the  sepoys  have  of 
them.  The  Burmahs  are  only  afraid  of  the  white  faces,  as  I 
shall  very  soon  establish.  They  despise  the  sepoys,  although 
they  are  so  well  armed.  Now,  that  the  sepoys  are  good 
troops,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  they  have  proved  it  often ; 
but,  at  the  baine  time,  they  are  not,  as  some  of  the  Indian 
officers  have  asserted  in  my  presence,  the  best  troops  in  the 
world,  and  preferable  to  Europeans.  That  they  are  much 
easier  to  control,  and  that  they  excel  in  discipline,  I  grant, 
because  they  are  never  intoxicated ;  but  they  have,  in  the 
first  place,  very  little  stamina,  and  are,  generally  speaking,  a 
small  and  very  effeminately  built  race.  Still  they  have 
fought  well — very  well ;  but  they  never  fought  well  against 
the  Burmahs ;  and  for  this  simple  reason, — that  superstition 
is  more  powerful  than  courage,  and  subdues  it.  The  sepoys 
are  very  superstitious,  and  had  the  idea,  which  was  never 
eradicated,  that  the  Burmahs  were  charmed  men,  and  they 
never  went  out  against  them  willingly,  even  when  they 
were  headed  by  the  English  troops.  As  for  the  Burmahs' 
contempt  of  them,  it  was  notorious.  I  have  myself  seen 
one  of  the  Burmah  prisoners  at  Rangoon  lift  up  a  piece  of 
timber  that  six  of  the  sepoys  could  hardly  have  moved,  and 
throw  it  down,  so  as  to  make  it  roll  at  the  feet  of  the 
sepoy  guard  who  watched  him,  making  them  all  retreat 
several  paces,  and  then  laugh  at  them  in  derision.  But 
we  had  many  more  decisive  proofs.  The  Burmahs  had 
stockaded  themselves  about  seven  miles  from  Rangoon,  and 

it  was  determined   to  dislodge   them.     Colonel  S ,  who 

was  very  partial  to  the  native  troops,  was  ordered  on  this 
service,  and  he  requested  particularly  that  he  might  have 
no  troops  but  the  sepoys.  Sir  A.  Campbell  did  not  much 
like  to  consent,  but,  as  the  stockades  were  not  higher 
than  breastworks,  and  the  Burmahs  not  in  very  great  force, 
he  eventually  yielded  to  the  Colonel's  arguments.  Fifteen 
hundred  sepoys  were  ordered  out,  and  the  Colonel  went  on 
his  expedition.  The  Burmahs  had  good  intelligence  that 
there  were  no  European  troops,  and  when  the  sepoys  arrived, 
they  did  not  wait  to  be  attacked,  but  attacked  the  sepoys, 
and  put  them  completely  to  the  rout.  One  half  of  the 
sepoys  were  said  to  be  killed  ;  the  others  came  back  to 
Rangoon  in  parties  of  ten  or  twelve,  and  in  the  utmost 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

consternation  and  confusion.  Sir  A.  Campbell  was,  of  course, 
much  annoyed,  and  the  next  day  a  European  force  was 
despatched  against  the  Burmahs.  On  their  arrival  they 
witnessed  a  dreadful  and  disgusting  scene.  A  long  avenue 
had  been  cut  in  the  wood,  and  on  each  side  of  it  were  hung 
by  the  heels,  at  equal  distances,  shockingly  mutilated,  the 
naked  bodies  of  the  seven  hundred  and  fifty  sepoys  killed. 
The  Burmahs  did  not,  however,  attempt  to  resist  the  Euro- 
pean force,  but  after  a  few  shots  made  their  retreat.  Now, 
this  is  a  very  important  fact :  and  it  is  a  fact  which  cannot 
be  denied,  although  it  has  not  been  made  known.  In  India 
there  is  a  nominal  force  of  three  hundred  thousand  men, 
but  they  are  scattered  over  such  a  vast  extent  of  territory, 
that,  allowing  they  could  be  made  disposable,  which  they 
could  not,  it  would  require  many  months  before  they  could 
be  collected,  and  if  the  Burmahs  despise  the  sepoys,  and 
the  sepoys  dread  the  Burmahs,  the  only  check  against 
the  latter  will  be  the  European  troops ;  and  of  them  how 
many  can  be  called  out.  Not  ten  thousand,  at  the  very 
utmost ;  and  the  difficulty  of  collecting  them  was  well 
known  at  the  commencement  of  the  Burmah  war.  There 
certainly  is  a  great  difference  between  attacking  others 
in  their  own  territories,  and  defending  ourselves ;  but  if 
the  Burmahs  could  hold  out  against  us,  as  they  did,  for 
nearly  three  years,  without  arras  to  cope  with  us,  what 
might  be  the  consequence  if  they  were  supplied  with  arms 
and  officers  by  any  other  nation  ?  We  have  now  a  footing 
in  the  country,  and  it  must  be  our  object  to  prevent  the 
ingress  of  any  other,  and  to  keep  the  Burmahs  as  quirt 
and  as  peaceable  as  we  can.  But  our  very  intercourse  will 
enlighten  them  by  degrees,  and  we  have  more  to  dread  from 
that  quarter  than  from  all  the  hordes  of  Russia  or  Ilunjeet 
Sing,  and  the  whole  disaffection  of  India. 

As  I  have  more  to  say  relative  to  the  Burmahs,  I  will,  in 
my  next  chapter,  enter  into  a  short  narrative  of  the  expedi- 
tion to  Bassein.  It  was  a  bloodless  one,  although  very  im- 
portant in  its  results :  and  circumstances  occurred  in  it  which 
will  throw  much  light  upon  the  character  of  the  nation. 


106 


DIARY   ON  THE   CONTINENT 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

_1T  was  not  until  many  months  after  the  war  had  been 
carried  on  that  Sir  Archibald  Campbell  found  himself  in  a 
position  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  the  Burmah  territory, 
and  attempt  the  capital.  He  wanted  almost  everything, 
and,  among  the  rest,  reinforcements  of  men;  for  the  rainy 
season  had  swept  them  off  by  thousands.  At  last,  when 
determined  to  make  the  attempt,  he  did  it  with  a  most 
inadequate  force ;  so  small  that,  had  the  Burmahs  thought 
of  even  trenching  up  and  barricading  the  roads  at  every 
half  mile,  he  must  have  been  compelled,  without  firing  a 
shot,  to  have  retreated.  Fortunately,  he  had  an  accession 
of  men-of-war,  and  his  river  detachment  was  stronger  than 
he  could  have  hoped  for.  I  do  not  pretend  to  state  the 
total  force  which  was  embarked  on  the  river  or  that  which 
proceeded  by  land,  communicating  with  each  other  when 
circumstances  permitted,  as  the  major  part  of  the  provisions 
of  the  army  were,  I  believe,  carried  up  by  water.  The  united 
river  force  was  commanded  by  Brigadier  Cotton,  Captain 
Alexander,  and  Giptain  Chads  ;  the  land  forces,  of  course, 
by  Sir  A.  Campbell,  who  had  excellent  officers  with  him,  but 
whose  tactics  were  of  no  use  in  this  warfare  of  morass,  mud, 
and  jungle. 

It  will  be  proper  to  explain  why  it  was  considered  necessary 
to  detach  a  part  of  the  forces  to  Bassein.  The  Rangoon 
river  joins  the  Irrawaddy  on  the  left,  about  one  hundred 
and  seventy  miles  from  its  flowing  into  the  ocean.  On  the 
right  of  the  Irrawaddy  is  the  river  of  Bassein,  the  mouth 
of  it  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  that  of  the 
Irrawaddy,  and  running  up  the  country  in  an  angle  towards 
it  until  it  joins  it  about  four  hundred  miles  up  in  the  interior. 
The  two  rivers  thus  enclose  a  large  delta  of  land,  which  is 
the  most  fertile  and  best  peopled  of  the  Burmah  provinces, 
and  it  was  from  this  delta  that  Bundoola,  the  Burmah  general, 
received  all  his  supplies  of  men.  Bundoola  was  in  the 
strong  fortress  of  Donabue,  on  the  Bassein  side  of  the  river, 
about  half  way  between  where  the  Rangoon  river  joined  it 
on  the  left,  and  the  Bassein  river  communicated  with  it  a 
107 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

long  way  farther  up  on  the  right.  Sir  A.  Campbell's  land 
forces  were  on  the  left  of  the  river,  so  that  Bumloola's 
communication  with  the  Bassein  territory  was  quite  open  ; 
and  as  the  river  forces  had  to  attack  Donahue  on  their 
way  up,  the  force  sent  to  Bassein  was  to  take  him  in  the 
rear  and  cut  off  his  supplies.  This  was  a  most  judicious 
plan  of  the  General's,  as  will  he  proved  in  the  sequel. 
Major  S ,  with  four  or  five  hundred  men  in  three  tran- 
sports, the  Lame,  and  the  Mercury,  Hon.  Company's  brig, 
were  ordered  upon  this  expedition,  which  sailed  at  the 
same  time  that  the  army  hegan  to  march  and  the  boats  to 
ascend  the  river. 

On  the  arrival  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  we  found  the 
entrance  most  formidable  in  appearance,  there  being  a  dozen 
or  more  stockades  of  great  extent ;  but  there  were  but  two 
manned,  the  guns  of  the  others,  as  well  as  the  men,  having 
been  forwarded  to  Donabue,  the  Burmahs  not  imagining,  as 
we  had  so  long  left  that  part  of  their  territory  unmolested, 
that  we  should  have  attempted  it.  Our  passage  was  there- 
fore easy  ;  after  a  few  broadsides,  we  landed  and  spiked  the 
guns,  and  then,  with  a  fair  wind,  ran  about  seventy  miles  up 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  and  finest  rivers  I  was  ever  in. 
Occasionally  the  right  lines  of  stockades  presented  them- 
selves, but  we  found  nobody  in  them,  and  passed  by  them  in 
peace.  But  the  river  now  became  more  intricate,  and  the 
pilots,  as  usual,  knew  nothing  about  it.  It  was,  however,  of 
little  consequence  ;  the  river  was  deep  even  at  its  banks, 
over  which  the  forest  trees  threw  their  boughs  in  wild 
luxuriance.  The  wind  was  now  down  the  river,  and  we 
were  two  or  three  days  before  we  arrived  at  Bassein,  during 
which  we  tidied  and  warped  how  we  could,  while  Major 

S grumbled,     If  the  reader  wishes  to  know  why  Major 

S grumbled,    I    will    tell    him — because    there    was   no 

fighting.  He  grumbled  when  we  passed  the  stockades  at 
the  entrance  of  the  river  because  they  were  not  manned  ; 
and  he  grumbled  at  every  dismantled  stockade  that  we 

passed.     But  there    was   no   pleasing    S ;  if  he   was  in 

hard  action  and  not  wounded,  he  grumbled  ;  if  he  received 
a  slight  wound,  he  grumbled  because  it  was  not  a  severe 
one  ;  if  a  severe  one,  he  grumbled  because  he  was  not  able 
to  fight  the  next  day.  He  h.id  been  nearly  cut  to  pieces  in 
108 


DIARY   ON  THE   CONTINENT 

many  actions,  but  he  was  not  content.  Like  the  man  tinder 
punishment,  the  drummer  might  strike  high  or  strike  low, 

there    was    no    pleasing   S *   nothing    but    the    amp    de 

grace,  if  he  be  now  alive,  will  satisfy  him.  But  notwith- 
standing this  mania  for  being  carved,  he  was  an  excellent 
and  judicious  officer.  I  have  been  told  he  is  since  dead  ; 
if  so,  his  Majesty  has  lost  one  of  the  most  devoted  raid 
cbivalric  officers  in  his  service,  to  whom  might  most  justly 
be  applied  the  words  of  Hotspur,  "But  if  it  be  a  sin  to 
covet  honour,  I  am  the  most  offending  soul  alive."  l 

As  I  before  observed,  the  branches  of  the  trees  hung  over 
the  sides  of  the  river,  and  a  circumstance  occurred  which  was 
a  source  of  great  amusement.  We  had  a  little  monkey,  who 
had  been  some  time  on  board,  and  was  a  favourite,  as  usual, 
of  the  ship's  company.  The  baffling  winds  very  often  threw 
us  against  the  banks  of  the  river,  near  which  there  was 
plenty  of  water ;  and  when  this  was  the  case,  the  boughs  of 
the  trees  were  interlaced  with  the  rigging  of  the  ship.  This 
unusual  embracing  between  nature  and  art  gave  Jacko  the 
idea  of  old  times,  when  he  frolicked  in  the  woods,  and 
unable  to  resist  the  force  of  early  associations,  he  stepped 
from  the  top-sail  yard  to  the  branch  of  a  large  tree,  and 
when  the  ship  had  hauled  off  clear,  we  found  that  Jacko 
had  deserted.  We  lamented  it,  and  ten  minutes  afterwards, 
thinking  no  more  about  him,  we  continued  our  course  up  the 
river.  About  an  hour  had  elapsed,  during  which  we  had 
gained  upwards  of  a  mile,  when  again  nearing  the  bank 
on  that  side,  we  heard  a  loud  chattering  and  screaming. 
"That's  Jacko,  sir,"  said  one  of  the  men,  and  others  ex- 
pressed the  same  opinion.  W7e  manned  the  jolly-boat,  and 
sent  it  on  shore  towards  the  place  where  the  noise* was  heard. 
The  monkey  did  not  wait  till  the  bow  of  the  boat  touched 
the  shore,  but  springing  into  it  when  some  feet  off,  he  took 
his  seat  very  deliberately  on  the  stern,  and  was  pulled  on 
board,  where  immediately  he  flew  up  the  side,  caressing 
every  one  he  met.  The  fact  was,  that  Jacko  had  found 
several  of  his  own  race  in  the  woods,  but,  like  all  wild 
animals,  they  immediately  attacked  one  who  had  worn  the 

1  He  is  alive  and  well,  and  has  since  gained  great  distinction  and 
honour. 

109 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

chains  of  servitude,  and  Jacko  had  to  fly  for  his  life.  We 
very  often  interlaced  the  rigging  Avith  the  boughs  after  that, 
but  the  monkey  remained  quiet  on  the  booms,  and  showed 
not  the  slightest  wish  to  renew  his  rambles. 

I  think  it  was  on  the  third  day  that  we  arrived  below  the 
town  of  Naputah,  which  was  defended  by  a  very  formidable 
stockade,  commanding  the  whole  reach  of  the  river.  The 
stockade  was  manned,  and  we  expected  that  it  would  be 
defended,  but  as  we  did  not  fire,  neither  did  they ;  and  we 

should  have  passed   it  quietly,  had  not  S grumbled  so 

much  at  his  bad  luck.  The  next  day  we  arrived  at  Bassem, 
one  of  the  principal  towns  in  the  Burman  Empire.  Here 
again  the  Major  was  disappointed,  for  it  appeared  that,  on 
hearing  of  the  arrival  of  the  expedition  at  the  entrance  of 
the  river,  the  people  had  divided  into  two  parties,  one  for 
resistance,  the  other  for  submission.  This  difference  of 
opinion  had  ended  in  their  setting  fire  to  the  town  and 
immense  magazines  of  grain,  dismantling  the  stockades,  and 
the  major  pnrt  of  the  inhabitants  flying  into  the  country. 
The  consequence  was,  that  we  took  possession  of  the  smoking 
ruins  without  opposition. 

It  was  soon  observed  that  the  people  were  tired  of  th< 
protracted  war,  and  of  the  desolation  occasioned  by  it.  They 
wanted  to  return  to  their  wives  and  families,  who  were 
starving.  But  up  to  this  time  the  chiefs  had  remained 
faithful  to  Bundoola,  who  had  amassed  stores  and  provisions 
at  Bassein,  intending  to  retreat  upon  it,  should  he  be  driven 
out  of  the  fortress  of  Donahue ;  and  as  long  as  he  held  that 
fortress,  receiving  from  Bassein  his  supplies  of  men  and  of 
provisions.  The  Burmahs  were  so  unwilling  to  fight  any 
longer,  that  they  were  collected  by  armed  bands,  and  made 
prisoners  by  the  chiefs,  who  sent  them  up  as  required  ;  and 
many  hundreds  were  in  this  way  detained,  enclosed  in 
stockaded  ground,  and  watched  by  armed  men,  in  several 
towns  along  the  river.  An  expedition  was  first  despatched 
up  the  river,  to  its  junction  with  the  Irrawacldy,  as  there  was 
a  town  there  in  which  was  the  dockyard  of  the  Burmahs,  all 
their  war  boats  and  canoes  of  every  description  being  built  at 
that  place.  They  ascended  without  difficulty,  and,  after  a 
little  skirmishing,  took  possession  of  the  place,  burnt  all  the 
boats  built  or  building,  and  then  returned  to  Bassein. 


110 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

Of  course,  we  had  then  nothing  to  do :  Major  S *3 

orders  were  to  join  Sir  A.  Campbell,  if  he  possibly  could  ; 
which,  with  much  difficulty,  he  ultimately  effected.  We 
must  now  return  to  the  Irrawaddy  expedition,  sent  up  at  the 
same  time  that  Sir  A.  Campbell  marched  by  land  and  our  ex- 
pedition went  up  the  Bassein  river. 

This  force  arrived  at  Donabue  before  we  had  gained 
Bassein.  It  found  a  most  formidable  fortress,  or  rather, 
three  fortresses  in  one,  mounting  a  great  number  of  guns, 
and,  as  I  before  observed,  held  by  Bundoola,  the  commander 
of  the  Burmah  forces,  in  whom  the  Burm;ih  troops  placed  the 
greatest  confidence.  I  speak  from  hearsay  and  memory,  but 
I  believe  I  am  correct  when  I  state  that  there  were  not  less 
than  ten  thousand  men  in  Donabue,  besides  war  elephants, 
&c.  Now  the  river  force  did  not  amount  in  fighting  men 
certainly  to  one  thousand,  and  they  were  not  in  sufficient 
strength  to  attack  a  place  of  this  description,  upon  which 
every  pains  had  been  taken  for  a  long  while  to  render  it 
impregnable.  The  attack  was  however  made,  and  the 
smaller  stockade  of  the  three  carried  ;  but  when  they  had 
possession  of  the  smallest  stockade  they  discovered  they 
were  at  the  mercy  of  the  second,  and  in  a  sort  of  trap.  The 
consequence  was,  defeat — the  only  defeat  experienced  by 
the  white  troops  during  the  whole  war.  The  troops  were 
re-embarked,  and  the  boats  were  obliged  to  drop  down  the 
river  clear  of  the  fire  of  the  fort.  I  believe  two  hundred  and 
fifty  English  troops  were  left  dead  in  the  stockade,  and  the 
next  day  their  bodies,  crucified  on  rafts,  were  floated  down 
among  the  English  boats  by  the  triumphant  Bundoola.  In 
the  meantime  a  despatch  had  been  sent  to  Sir  A.  Campbell, 
who  was  in  advance  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  stating  that 
the  force  afloat  was  not  able  to  cope  with  the  fortress,  the 
real  strength  of  which  no  one  had  been  aware  of.  The 
consequence  was,  that  Sir  A.  Campbell  retraced  his  steps, 
crossed  the  river,  and  attacked  it  in  conjunction  with  the 
flotilla,  Sir  A.  Campbell  taking  it  in  the  rear.  After  some 
nard  fighting,  in  which  the  elephants  played  their  parts, 
the  troops  gained  possession,  and  Bundoola  having  been 
killed  by  a  shell,  the  Burmahs  fled.  Now  it  was  very  fortu- 
nate that  the  expedition  had  been  sent  to  Bassein,  for  other- 
wise the  Burmahs  would  have  fallen  back  upon  that  place, 
111 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

which  held  all  their  stores,  and  would  thus  have  been  able 
to  continue  in  the  rear  of  Sir  A.  Campbell,  as  he  advanced 
up  the  river.  But  they  had  heard  of  the  destruction  and 
capture  of  Bassein,  and  consequently  directed  their  flight  up 
the  river  towards  the  capital.  We  were  in  possession  of  all 
these  circumstances  shortly  after  we  had  taken  possession  of 
Bassein ;  and  although  the  death  of  Bundoola  and  taking  of 
Donabue  had  dispirited  the  Burmahs,  yet  there  were  many 
chiefs  who  still  held  out,  and  who,  had  they  crossed  with 
their  troops  to  the  Irrawaddy,  would  have  interrupted  the 
supplies  coming  up,  and  the  wounded  and  sick  who  were 
sent  down.  We  had,  therefore,  still  the  duty  of  breaking  up 
these  resources  if  possible.  Having  ascertained  who  the 
parties  were,  we  sent  a  message  to  one  of  the  weakest  to  say, 
that  if  he  did  not  tender  his  submission,  and  come  in  to  us, 
we  should  attack  him,  and  burn  the  town  to  the  ground. 

The  chief  thought  it  advisable  to  obey  our  summons,  and 
sent  word  that  he  would  come  in  on  the  ensuing  day.  He 
kept  his  promise  :  about  noon,  as  we  were  sitting  in  the 
verandah  of  a  large  Sammy  house  (a  sort  of  monastery)  which 
we  had  taken  possession  of,  we  were  informed  that  he  had 
arrived.  The  token  of  submission  on  the  part  of  the 
Burmahs  is,  presenting  the  other  party  with  wax  candles.  If 
a  poor  man  has  a  request  to  make,  or  favour  to  ask  of  a  great 
man,  he  never  makes  it  without  laying  a  small  wax  candle 
at  his  feet.  Neither  do  they  approach  the  Rayhoon  and 
Mayhoon  without  this  mark  of  respect. 

Some  time  after  this,  one  of  the  chiefs  who  had  submitted 
took  up  his  quarters  at  Bassein ;  and  his  little  daughter, 
about  eight  or  nine  years  old,  was  very  fond  of  coming  to  see 
me,  as  I  generally  made  her  little  presents.  She  became 
very  much  attached  to  me,  but  she  never  appeared  without  a 
little  wax  candle,  which  she  dropped  at  my  feet  before  she 
threw  herself  into  my  lap. 

In  the  present  instance,  the  chief  first  made  his  appear- 
ance, and  having  come  within  a  few  feet,  sat  down  as  a 
mark  of  respect.  He  was  followed  by  six  more,  who  each 
carried  about  two  pounds  of  wax  candles,  tastefully  arranged 
in  a  sort  of  filigree  work  of  coloured  papers.  After  these 
came  about  fifty  men,  carrying  large  baskets  full  of  vegetables 
and  fruit,  which  they  poured  out  on  the  floor  before  us,  and 
112 


DIARY  ON   THE  CONTINENT 

then  walked  away  and  squatted  at  a  distance.  A  few 
words  of  ceremony  were  then  exchanged,  and  the  friendship 
cemented  over  a  bottle  of  brandy  and  some  wine ;  which, 
notwithstanding  the  use  of  spirituous  liquors  is  against  their 
religion,  and  forbidden  by  the  government,  they  did  not 
object  to.  Before  he  left  I  made  him  a  present  in  return, 
and  he  went  away  delighted  with  the  gift.  Several  more  of 
the  minor  chiefs  afterwards  came  in,  and  the  same  formalities 
were  gone  through  ;  but  there  were  three  of  the  most  im- 
portant who  would  not  make  their  appearance :  one,  the 
chief  of  Naputah,  the  town  which  we  had  passed,  which  did 
not  fire  at  us  from  the  stockades,  and  two  others  down  at 
another  large  arm  of  the  river,  who  had  many  men  detained 
for  the  service  of  the  army  if  required,  and  who  were  still  at 
open  defiance.  All  these  three  were  gold  chatta  chiefs, 
that  is,  permitted  to  have  a  gold  umbrella  carried  over  their 
heads  when  they  appeared  in  public. 

After  waiting  a  certain  time  for  these  people  to  send  in 
their  submission,  we  sent  word  down  to  the  chief  of  Naputah 
that  we  should  visit  him  the  next  day,  threatening  him 
with  the  consequences  of  not  complying  with  our  request. 
Accordingly  we  weighed  in  the  Larne,  and  dropped  down 
the  river  till  we  were  abreast  of  the  town  and  stockade, 
which  were  about  thirty  miles  distant  from  Bassein.  Our 
broadside  was  ready ;  but  as  we  were  about  to  fire,  we 
perceived  that  boats  were  manning,  and  in  about  five  minutes 
the  chief  of  Naputah,  in  his  own  war-boat,  accompanied  by 
about  twelve  others,  and  a  great  many  canoes,  pulled  off 
from  the  shore  and  came  alongside.  He  made  his  sub- 
mission, with  the  usual  accompaniments,  and  we  were  soon 
very  good  friends.  We  gave  him  a  beautiful  little  brass 
gun,  which  ornamented  our  poop,  and  he  went  away  very 
well  pleased.  We  here  had  an  opportunity  of  witnessing 
the  dexterity  with  which  they  handle  their  boats.  They 
really  appeared  to  be  alive,  they  darted  through  the  water 
with  such  rapidity.  Many  of  the  Burmahs  remained  on 
board,  examining  every  part  of  the  vessel  and  her  equip- 
ment ;  and  soon  they  were  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the 
seamen  and  the  few  troops  whom  I  had  on  board  to  assist 
us,  for  we  were  very  short  manned.  We  had  gained  in- 
telligence that  there  were  some  guns  sunk  in  a  creek,  about 
U3  H 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

three  miles  from  Bassein,  and  we  had  despatched  a  boat  to 
look  for  them,  having  the  assurance  of  a  chief  who  was  at 
Bassein,  that  the  people  were  peaceable  and  well  disposed. 
By  some  mistake  the  boat  went  up  the  wrong  creek,  and 
pulled  many  miles  into  the  country,  without  finding  the 
spot  pointed  out  by  marks  given.  At  night  they  were  at 
the  mercy  of  the  Burmahs,  who  came  to  them  to  know  what 
they  required.  The  Burmahs  told  them  that  they  had  mis- 
taken the  creek,  but  were  very  kind  to  them,  giving  them 
a  good  supper,  and  passing  the  night  among  them,  playing 
their  marionnettes.  The  next  day  they  showed  them  their 
way,  and  when  they  came  to  the  guns,  the  Burmahs  dived, 
and  made  ropes  fast,  and  brought  them  up  for  them,  sending 
a  message  that  they  would  come  and  see  the  Great  Water-dog 
(meaning  me)  the  next  day. 

We  remained  two  days  at  anchor,  off  the  town  of  Naputah, 
waiting  for  this  boat,  as  it  was  our  intention  to  go  down  the 
river  and  attack  the  two  other  gold  chatta  chiefs,  if  they 
did  not  send  in  their  submission.  On  the  second  day  the 
Naputah  chief  came  on  board  to  ask  us  if  we  would  attend 
a  Nautch  which  he  gave  that  evening  in  compliment  to 
us ;  but  requested  that  we  would  not  bring  all  our  people, 
as  it  would  frighten  his  own.  Although  it  was  not  pleasant 
to  trust  ourselves  on  shore  in  the  night,  in  the  midst  of  so 
large  a  force,  yet,  anxious  to  make  friends  with  him,  we 
thought  it  advisable  to  accept  the  invitation  in  the  manner 
he  desired.  I  replied  that  "  I  would  only  bring  on  shore  a 
few  officers,  and  my  usual  attendants  of  six  marines  without 
arms."  At  eight  o'clock  some  of  the  officers  and  I  went 
on  shore  :  it  was  quite  dark,  but  we  found  the  chief  at  the 
landing-place  ready  to  receive  us.  The  marines  had  their 
bayonets,  and  the  officers  had  pistols  concealed  in  case  of 
treachery,  and  the  first  lieutenant  kept  a  good  look-out, 
with  the  broadside  of  the  ship  all  ready  at  the  first  flash  of 
a  pistol,  but  these  precautions  were  unnecessary ;  the  chief 
took  me  by  the  hand  and  led  me  up  to  his  house,  in  front 
of  which  had  been  erected  a  sort  of  covered  circus,  brilliantly 
lighted  up  with  oil  in  cocoa-nut  shells,  and  round  which 
were  squatted  several  hundred  Burmahs.  He  took  us  all 
to  the  raised  verandah  of  the  house,  which  was  fitted  up 
for  the  ceremony,  where  we  found  his  wife  and  all  hi§ 

m 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

attendants,  but  not  his  daughter,  who  was  said  to  be  very 
handsome.  As  soon  as  we  had  taken  our  seats  the  Nautch 
commenced.  About  twenty  men  struck  up  a  very  barbarous 
kind  of  music,  in  which  the  bells  and  drums  made  the  most 
noise.  After  a  few  minutes  of  discordant  sound,  the  play 
began.  The  actors  were  in  a  sort  of  costume,  and  appeared 
quite  at  home  in  their  parts.  The  story  consisted  in  the 
attempts  of  a  young  prince  to  obtain  the  hand  of  a  young 
princess ;  and  the  dialogue  was  constantly  interrupted  by 
an  actor  who  appeared  to  be  a  looker-on,  but  who  made 
his  remarks  upon  what  passed,  so  as  to  excite  bursts  of 
laughter  from  the  audience.  He  was  the  Jack  Pudding, 
or  wit  of  the  piece,  and  several  of  his  jokes  were  not  very 
delicate.  At  all  events,  he  was  the  Liston  of  the  company, 
for  he  never  spoke  nor  moved  without  creating  a  laugh. 
The  play  ended  very  curiously  ;  after  the  prince  had  gained 
the  princess,  they  had  a  procession,  in  which  they  made  an 
imitation  of  a  ship,  out  of  compliment  to  us ;  and  then  built 
a  little  house  on  the  stage  with  singular  rapidity,  to  the 
door  of  which  they  conducted  the  youthful  couple,  closed 
it,  and  then  the  play  was  over.  In  the  meantime  pickled  lea 
(which  is  a  great  compliment  and  excessively  nasty)  was 
handed  round  to  us,  and  we  all  partook  of  it,  taking  it  out 
with  our  fingers ;  but  we  could  not  swallow  it,  so  it  re- 
mained like  a  quid  of  tobacco  in  our  cheeks  until  we  had 
an  opportunity  of  getting  rid  of  it. 

The  purser  had  had  the  foresight  to  put  a  couple  of  bottles 
of  wine,  and  one  of  brandy,  in  the  pockets  of  the  marines, 
which  were  now  produced,  while  the  band  continued  to  play, 
and  wrestling  was  introduced.  We  asked  the  chief  to  join 
us,  but  he  refused  ;  he  handed  down  a  sort  of  picture,  in 
which  was  represented  the  white  elephant,  pagodas,  £c.,  and 
told  us  that  he  was  not  only  the  war  chief,  but  the  head  of 
the  religion  at  Naputah,  and  that  it  would  not  be  right  that 
he  should  be  seen  by  his  people  transgressing  the  laws,  In 
the  meantime  his  daughter,  who  did  not  come  out  to  us,  was 
very  anxious  to  know  what  sort  of  people  we  were,  and  she 
sent  for  one  to  be  brought  in  to  her.  My  clerk  was  the 
favoured  party.  She  examined  him  very  closely,  pulled  his 
dress  about,  made  him  bare  his  legs  to  see  how  white  they 
were,  and  then  dismissed  him.  The  clerk  reported  her  as 
115 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

very  handsome,  and  quite  as  white  as  he  was ;  splendidly 
dressed  ;  and  with  an  air  of  command,  which  showed  that 
she  was  aware  of  her  importance. 

We  stayed  about  two  hours  longer,  and  then  we  rose  to  go 
away.  The  chief  walked  with  us  down  to  the  boats,  and  we 
were  not  sorry  to  find  ourselves  on  board  again ;  for  the 
population  was  much  more  numerous  than  we  had  imagined, 
and  had  any  treachery  been  attempted,  we  must  have  fallen 
a  sacrifice. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

EXPEDITION  TO  BASSEiN  (continued) 

May  1836. 

ALTHOUGH  on  friendly  terms  with  the  chief  of  Naputah, 
he  was  a  person  of  such  weight  in  that  part  of  the  country, 
that  it  was  advisable,  if  possible,  to  identify  him  with  us,  so 
that  he  should  never  again  fall  off,  and  oppose  us,  in  the 
contingency  of  a  reverse,  on  the  Irrawaddy.  The  next  day 
•we  sent  for  him,  informing  him  that  it  was  to  make  him  a 
present  in  return  for  his  civility  the  day  before.  But  before 
we  handed  the  present  to  him,  we  stated  our  intention  of 
dropping  down  the  river  to  reduce  the  two  gold  chatta 
chiefs  who  still  held  out ;  and  that,  as  we  did  not  exactly 
know  where  their  towns  were  situated,  we  wished  for  some 
of  his  people  to  go  with  me.  To  this  first  proposition,  after 
some  hesitation,  he  consented.  We  then  pointed  out  that 
our  men  were  not  accustomed  to  work  in  the  sun,  and  were 
often  ill ;  that,  as  we  were  now  friends,  we  wished  him  to 
allow  me  some  of  his  boats  to  assist  the  ship  in  the  river. 
To  this  also  he  consented.  In  fine,  we  brought  forward  our 
first  proposition,  which  was,  that  he  should  supply  us  with 
six  or  eight  war-boats,  well  manned,  and  that  we  would  pay 
the  men  and  officers  at  the  same  rate  per  day  as  we  paid  our 
own  men ;  stating  the  sum  we  would  give,  and  that,  if  he 
Avas  really  sincere  in  his  friendship  and  goodwill,  we  ex- 
pected not  to  be  refused.  Now,  among  the  Burmahs  who 
were  with  him  there  were  many  whose  relations  were  de- 
tained to  join  the  army ;  a  consultation  ensued  ;  the  chief 
was  pressed  by  his  own  people,  and  at  last  gave  his  consent. 
116 


DIARY  ON   THE   CONTINENT 

We  then  presented  him  with  the  piece  of  plate,  upon  which 
his  eyes  had  constantly  been  turned,  and  he  went  away 
promising  us  that  the  men  and  boats  should  be  alongside 
by  daylight  the  next  morning. 

This  chief  adhered  to  his  promise,  and  we  weighed  anchor 
the  next  day,  and  made  sail  down  with  the  war-boats,  and 
three  or  four  despatch-canoes,  pulled  by  four  or  five  men. 
These  little  canoes,  when  put  to  their  speed,  dashed  through 
the  water  at  such  a  rate  that  they  threw  off  from  each  bow 
one  continued  little  fan-shaped  jet  d'eau,  which  had  a  very 
beautiful  appearance,  the  sunbeams  fonning  them  into  rain- 
bows. As  for  our  Burmah  force,  they  were  at  one  time 
pulling  against  the  vessel  sailing ;  at  others,  hanging  on,  and 
the  people  climbing  about  the  rigging  and  ascending  the 
masthead  of  the  vessel  ;  but  they  soon  all  congregated  to 
the  stand  of  muskets,  for  that  was  the  great  object  of  attrac- 
tion. In  the  afternoon  we  had  ball  practice  with  the  small 
arms  ;  and  the  Burmahs  were,  much  to  their  delight,  per- 
mitted to  fire.  It  is  surprising  how  exact  they  were  in  their 
aim,  considering  the  little  practice  they  must  have  had. 
Bad  as  all  the  muskets  are  which  are  served  out  to  the  ships 
of  war,  I  really  believe  that  there  was  not  a  Burmah  who 
would  not  have  laid  down  everything  he  possessed,  except 
his  life,  to  have  obtained  one.  One  of  them,  when  he  was 
permitted  to  take  a  musket,  looked  proudly  round,  and  said, 
with  a  smile  of  joy,  "  Now  I'm  a  man  !  " 

The  next  day  we  arrived  at  the  branch  of  the  river  where 
one  of  the  chiefs  held  out.  At  daylight  our  own  boats  were 
manned,  and  with  the  Burmah  boats  ranged  in  line,  made 
an  imposing  appearance,  which  was  very  necessary,  for  at 
that  time  we  were  so  short-handed  that  we  could  not  send 
away  more  than  forty  men — a  force  so  small  that,  had  the 
Burmahs  opposed  to  us  seen  it  advance,  they  would  probably 
have  tried  their  strength  with  us.  As  it  was.  we  pulled  into 
the  stockaded  town  in  a  line,  the  despatch-boats  flying  across 
us  backwards  and  forwards  like  porpoises  before  the  bows 
of  a  ship  running  down  the  trades  :  not  that  they  had  any 
messages  to  carry,  but  merely  to  show  their  own  dexterity. 
When  we  had  advanced  to  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  a  boat 
came  out  and  communicated  with  one  of  the  despatch-boats, 
saying  that  the  Burmahs  would  not  fight  if  we  did  not  attack 
117 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

them,  and  that  they  would  deliver  up  the  men  detained,  and 
their  chief  as  a  prisoner.  We  agreed  to  these  terms,  landed, 
took  possession  of  the  chief  with  his  gold  chatta,  corre- 
spondence with  Bundoola,  &c.,  and  took  him  on  board.  On 
this  occasion  we  would  not  trust  the  Burmahs  employed  with 
muskets — it  was  too  soon;  they  had  only  their  own  swords 
and  spears. 

The  chief  was  a  fine  tall  man  with  a  long  beard.  Like 
all  Barmahs,  he  took  his  loss  of  liberty  very  composedly, 
sitting  down  between  the  guns  with  his  attendants,  and 
only  expressing  his  indignation  at  the  treachery  of  his  own 
people.  We  were  very  anxious  to  know  what  had  become 
of  the  guns  of  the  dismantled  stockade,  which  were  said  to 
be  in  his  possession,  but  he  positively  denied  it,  saying  that 
they  had  been  despatched  in  boats  across  to  the  Irrawaddy. 
Whether  this  were  true  or  not  it  was  impossible  to  say ; 
but,  at  all  events,  it  was  necessary  to  make  some  further 
attempts  to  obtain  them,  so  we  told  him  that  if  he  did 
not  inform  us  where  the  guns  were,  by  the  next  morning 
his  head  would  be  taken  off  his  shoulders.  At  this  pleasant 
intelligence  he  opened  his  betel-bag  and  renewed  his  quid. 
The  next  day  he  was  summoned  forth  to  account  for  the 
said  guns,  and  again  protested  that  they  had  been  sent  to 
Donabue,  which  I  really  believe  was  false,  as  they  were  not 
taken  out  of  the  stockade  until  after  Donabue  was  in  the 
possession  of  Sir  A.  Campbell ;  it  was  therefore  judged 
proper  to  appear  to  proceed  to  extremities,  and  this  time 
it  was  done  with  more  form.  A  file  of  marines  was  marched 
aft  with  their  muskets,  and  the  sergeant  appeared  with  his 
drawn  sword.  Sand  was  strewed  on  the  deck  in  front  of 
the  marines,  and  he  was  led  there  and  ordered  to  kneel 
down,  so  that  his  head,  if  cut  off,  would  fall  where  the 
sand  was  strewn.  He  was  again  asked  if  he  would  tell 
•where  the  guns  were  concealed,  and  again  stated  that  they 
were  at  Donabue ;  upon  which  he  was  desired  to  prepare 
for  death.  He  called  one  of  his  attendants,  and  gave  him 
his  silver  betel-box,  saying,  "  Take  this  to  my  wife — when 
she  sees  it  she  will  know  all."  I  watched  him  very  closely  ; 
his  countenance  was  composed,  but,  as  he  bent  forward  over 
the  sand,  the  muscles  of  his  arms  and  shoulders  quivered. 
However,  as  it  is  not  the  custom  to  cut  off  people's  heads 
118 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

on  the  quarter-deck  of  his  Majesty's  ships,  we  very  magnani- 
mously reprieved  him,  and  he  was  afterwards  sent  a  prisoner 
to  Calcutta.  But  that  he  had  the  guns  we  discovered  after- 
wards, which  adds  to  his  merit. 

Having  succeeded  in  this  attempt,  we  made  sail  for  the 
stockade  of  the  other  chief,  and  arrived  there  that  evening. 
As  he  was  supposed  to  be  greater  in  force  than  the  other, 
we  decided  upon  an  attack  in  the  dark,  when  he  would 
not  be  able  to  distinguish  of  what  our  force  was  composed  ; 
and  this  time  we  gave  muskets  to  our  Burmah  comrades. 
The  attack  was  successful,  we  obtained  possession,  and  the 
chief  fled,  but  our  Burmahs  pursued  him  nearly  two  miles, 
made  him  prisoner,  and  brought  him  aboard.  As  he  imme- 
diately tendered  his  submission,  which  the  other  would  not 
do,  he  was  released  the  next  day. 

We  had  done  all  our  work,  and  having  employed  the 
Burmahs  for  a  few  days  more  in  destroying  the  stockades 
at  the  entrance  of  the  river,  they  were  paid  and  dis- 
charged from  his  Majesty's  service.  They  would  not,  how- 
ever, quit  us  ;  but  so  long  as  we  remained  in  the  river 
they  continued  to  hang  on  to  the  ship,  and  discovered  three 
guns  which  had  been  sunk,  which  they  weighed  and  brought 
on  board. 

I  have  entered  into  this  short  narrative,  as  it  will  give 
some  idea  of  the  character  of  these  people.  The  govern- 
ment is  despotic,  cruel,  and  treacherous,  but  the  people  are 
neither  cruel  nor  treacherous ;  on  the  contrary,  I  think  they 
would  make  most  excellent  and  faithful  soldiers,  and  it  is 
singular  to  find,  surrounded  by  natives  who  have  not  the 
slightest  energy  of  mind  or  body,  a  people  so  active,  so 
laborious,  and  so  enterprising  as  the  Burmahs.  The  English 
seamen  are  particularly  partial  to  them,  and  declared  they 
were  "the  best  set  of  chaps  they  had  ever  fallen  in  with." 
They  admitted  the  Burmahs  to  their  messes,  and  were 
sworn  friends.  I  forgot  to  say,  that  when  *he  chiefs  sent 
in  their  submissions,  at  first,  among  other  presents,  they 
sent  slaves,  usually  females,  which  was  rather  awkward.  But 
not  wishing  to  affront  them  begged  that  the  slaves  sent 
might  be  children,  and  not  grown  up,  as  we  had  no  accom- 
modation for  them.  The  consequence  was,  that  I  had  quite 
a  young  family  when  I  left  the  river,  which  I  distributed 
119 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

at  Rangoon  and  the  presidencies  on  my  return.  For  if 
they  were  only  bond-slaves,  which  I  suppose  they  were, 
it  was  a  kindness  to  have  them  educated  and  taken  care 
of.  We  lost  one  little  fellow  that  was  a  great  favourite 
with  the  men;  he  was  about  three  years  old,  and  could 
speak  English.  He  had  been  christened  by  the  sailors  Billy 
Bamboo,  and  was  quite  as  amusing  as  the  monkey.  The 
poor  little  fellow  died  very  suddenly,  and  was  much  regretted 
by  all  on  board. 

I  certainly  do  think  that  we  may  eventually  find  the 
Burmahs  to  be  the  most  powerful  enemy  that  we  shall  have 
to  contend  with  in  India ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  I  cannot 
help  giving  my  opinion  as  to  the  ridiculous  fear  we  entertain 
of  the  Russians  ever  interfering  with  us  in  that  quarter. 
That  the  extension  of  the  Russian  empire  has  been  a  favourite 
object  through  many  of  her  dynasties  is  true,  but  it  is  so 
no  longer ;  they  have  discovered  that  already  their  empire  is 
too  extensive,  and  hardly  a  year  passes  but  they  have  out- 
breaks and  insurrections  to  quell  in  quarters  so  remote  that 
they  are  scarcely  heard  of  here.  That  Russia  might  possibly 
lead  an  army  through  our  Indian  possessions,  I  admit ;  but 
that  she  never  could  hold  them  if  she  did  do  so,  is  equally 
certain ;  the  conquest  would  be  useless  to  her,  after  having 
been  obtained  at  an  enormous  sacrifice.  The  fact  is,  the 
Russians  (with  the  exception  of  the  Emperor  Paul)  never 
had  any  intention  of  the  kind,. and  never  will  attempt  it:  but 
they  have  discovered  how  very  alive  we  are  to  the  possibility, 
and  how  very  jealous  and  anxious  we  are  on  the  subject, 
and  it  is  possible  that  they  have  made  demonstrations  in 
that  direction  to  alarm  us;  but  I  think,  myself,  that  the 
great  object  of  Russia  in  these  advances  has  been  to  force 
a  channel  for  trade,  which  in  her  present  situation  she  is 
to  the  south  of  her  extensive  emp're  nearly  deprived  of. 
Notwithstanding  the  outcry  which  has  so  often  been  raised 
against  the  Russian  empire,  it  has  always  appeared  to  me 
that  our  natural  ally  is  Russia  ;  as  for  an  alliance  with  France, 
it  is  morally  impossible  that  two  rival  nations  like  us  can 
continue  very  long  at  peace  ^  our  interests  are  separate  and 
conflicting,  and  our  jealousy  but  sleeps  for  the  moment.  We 
have  been  at  peace  with  France  many  years,  and  have  not  yet 
succeeded  in  making  a  satisfactory  commercial  treaty  with 
]20 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

her ;  neither  will  any  of  the  other  continental  powers  permit 
our  manufactures  to  enter,  with  the  exception  of  Russia,  who 
not  only  takes  them,  but  returns  to  us  what  is  most  valuable 
for  our  marine. 

Why,  then,  this  outcry  against  the  ambition  of  Russia  ? 
nothing  but  tirades  against  Russian  ambition.  Does  France 
show  no  ambition  ?  Does  America  show  no  ambition  ?  Have 
we  no  ambition  ourselves  ?  Why  this  constant  suspicion  and 
doubt  against  a  power  whose  interest  it  is  to  be  closely  allied 
to  us,  and  who  can  always  prove  a  valuable  aid  in  case  oi 
emergency — simply  because  Russia  wishes  to  have  an  opening 
to  the  Black  Sea.  And  this  is  very  natural :  her  northern 
ports  are  closed  nine  months  in  the  year,  and  therefore  her 
navy  and  mercantile  marine  are  almost  useless.  She  has 
no  outlet,  no  means  of  raising  either.  Does  she,  then,  ask 
too  much  ?  Is  a  great  empire  like  Russia  to  be  blocked  up, 
her  commerce  and  navy  crippled,  for  the  want  of  an  outlet  ? 
She  does  require  the  opening  of  the  Black  Sea ;  it  is  all 
that  she  requires.  She  never  will  remain  quiet  until  she 
obtains  it,  and  obtain  it  sooner  or  later  she  certainly  will  ; 
and  in  my  opinion  she  is  perfectly  justified  in  her  attempts. 
What  would  be  the  consequence  if  she  succeeded  ? — that, 
if  we  were  wise  enough  to  continue  on  terms  of  amity  with 
Russia,  who  has  invariably  extended  the  hand  of  friendship 
to  us,  and  has,  I  believe,  never  failed  in  her  treaties,  we 
should  have  a  balance  of  power  to  us  very  important.  Whose 
navies  shall  we  in  future  have  to  contend  against  ?- — those 
of  France  and  America ;  for  it  is  certain  that  whenever  we 
go  to  war  with  France  America  will  back  her,  and  their 
navies  will  be  united.  At  present  the  navy  of  America  is 
not  very  large,  but  it  can  soon  be  made  so ;  and  we  should 
not  be  sorry  to  have  the  navy  of  Russia  on  our  side,  to 
balance  against  the  two  which  will  always  be  opposed  to  us. 
It  is,  therefore,  our  interest  to  assist  Russia  in  the  object  she 
has  in  view,  and  to  keep  up  a  firm  alliance  with  her.  It  is 
the  interest  of  France  to  excite  jealousies  between  Russia 
and  this  country ;  and  her  emissaries  have  been  but  too 
successful,  at  the  very  time  that  France  has,  contrary  to  all 
treaty,  and  exclaiming  against  Russian  ambition,  seized  upon 
Algiers,  and  is  now  playing  her  game  so  as  if  possible  to 
Command  the  whole  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  very  strides 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

which  France  has  made  in  that  quarter  should  point  out  to 
us  the  propriety  of  opening  the  Black  Sea  for  Russia,  so  as 
to  restore  the  balance  of  power  in  that  future  site  of  con- 
tention. I  repeat  that  we  are  blind  in  every  way  to  our 
own  interests  in  not  uniting  ourselves  firmly  by  an  alliance, 
offensive  and  defensive,  with  Russia,  and  that  by  so  doing 
we  should  be  the  greatest  gainers ;  for  with  France  we  must 
never  expect  more  than  a  hollow  truce,  concealing  for  the 
time  her  jealousy  and  thirst  for  revenge — a  truce  during 
which  her  secret  efforts  to  undermine  us  will  be  still  carried 
on  as  indefatigably  as  ever,  and  which  must  only  be  con- 
sidered as  a  mere  feint  to  recover  her  breath,  before  she  again 
renews  her  frenzied  efforts  to  humiliate  England  and  obtain 
universal  dominion. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

LONDON,  June  1837. 

J.  O  one  who  has  visited  foreign  climes,  how  very  substantial 
everything  appears  in  England,  from  the  child's  plaything 
to  the  Duke  of  York's  c«.amn  !  To  use  a  joiner's  phrase, 
everything  abroad  is  comparatively  scamp -work.  Talk 
about  the  Palais  Royale,  the  Rue  Richelieu,  and  the  splendour 
of  the  Parisian  shops — why,  two  hundred  yards  of  Regent 
Street,  commencing  from  Howell  and  James's,  would  buy 
the  whole  of  them,  and  leave  a  balance  sufficient  to  buy  the 
remainder  of  the  French  expositions.  But  still,  if  more  sub- 
stantial and  massive,  we  are  at  the  same  time  also  heavy. 
We  want  more  space,  more  air,  more  room  to  breathe,  in 
London ;  we  are  too  closely  packed  ;  we  want  gardens  with 
trees  to  absorb  the  mephitic  air,  for  what  our  lungs  reject  is 
suitable  to  vegetation.  But  we  cannot  have  all  we  want  in 
this  world,  so  we  must  do  without  them. 

What  wealth  is  now  pouring  into  the  country !  and,  thank 
God,  it  is  now  somewhat  better  expended  than  it  was  in  the 
bubble  mania,  which  acted  upon  the  plethora  certainly,  but 
bled  us  too  freely  and  uselessly.  The  railroad  speculators 
have  taken  off  many  millions,  and  the  money  is  well  em- 
ployed ;  for  even  allowing  that,  in  some  instances,  the  ex- 
J22 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

pectations  of  the  parties  who  speculate  may  be  disappointed, 
still  it  is  spent  in  the  country ;  and  not  only  is  it  affording 
employment  and  sustenance  to  thousands,  but  the  staple 
produce  of  England  only  is  consumed.  In  these  speculations 
— in  the  millions  required  and  immediately  produced— you 
can  witness  the  superiority  of  England.  Undertakings  from 
which  foreign  governments  would  shrink  with  dismay  are  here 
effected  by  the  meeting  of  a  few  individuals. 

And  now  for  my  commissions.  What  a  list !  And  the  first 
item  is — two  Canary  birds,  the  last  having  been  one  fine 
morning  found  dead,  nobody  knows  how ;  there  was  plenty 
of  seed  and  water  (put  in  after  the  servant  found  that  they 
had  been  starved  by  his  neglect),  which,  of  course,  proved 
that  they  did  not  die  for  want  of  food.  I  hate  what  are 
called  pets ;  they  are  a  great  nuisance,  for  they  will  die,  and 
then  such  a  lamentation  over  them  !  In  the  "  Fire  Wor- 
shippers "  Moore  makes  his  Hinda  say — 

"  I  never  nursed  a  dear  gazelle, 

To  glad  me  with  its  soft  black  eye, 
But  when  it  came  to  know  me  well 
And  love  me — it  was  sure  to  die." 

Now  Hinda  was  perfectly  correct,  except  in  thinking  that  she 
was  peculiarly  unfortunate.  Every  one  who  keeps  pets  might 
tell  the  same  tale  as  Hinda.  I  recollect  once  a  Canary  bird 
died,  and  my  young  people  were  in  a  great  tribulation  ;  so  to 
amuse  them  we  made  them  a  paper  coffin,  put  the  defunct 
therein,  and  sewed  on  the  lid,  dug  a  grave  in  the  garden, 
and  dressing  them  out  in  any  remnants  of  black  we  could 
find  for  weepers,  made  a  procession  to  the  grave  where  it 
was  buried.  This  little  divertissement  quite  took  their 
fancy.  The  next  day  one  of  the  youngest  came  up  to  me 
and  said,  "  Oh,  papa,  when  will  you  die  ? " — A  strange 
question,  thought  I,  quite  forgetting  the  procession  of  the 
(lay  before. — "Why  do  you  ask,  my  dear?"- — "Oh,  because 
it  will  be  such  fun  burying  you." — "  Much  obliged  to  you, 
my  love." 

There  is  much  more  intellect  in  birds  than  people  suppose. 
An  instance  of  that  occurred  the  other  day,  at  a  slate  quarry 
belonging  to  a  friend,  from  whom  I  have  the  narrative,     A 
123 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

thrush,  not  aware  of  the  expansive  properties  of  gunpowder, 
thought  proper  to  build  her  nest  on  a  ridge  of  the  quarry,  in 
the  very  centre  of  which  they  were  constantly  blasting  the 
rock.  At  first  she  was  very  much  discomposed  by  the 
fragments  flying  in  all  directions,  but  still  she  would  not 
quit  her  chosen  locality  ;  she  soon  observed  that  a  bell  rang 
whenever  a  train  was  about  to  be  fired,  and  that,  at  the 
notice,  the  workmen  retired  to  safe  positions.  In  a  few 
days,  when  she  heard  the  bell,  she  quitted  her  exposed  situa- 
tion, and  flew  down  to  where  the  workmen  sheltered  them- 
selves, dropping  close  to  their  feet.  There  she  would  remain 
until  the  explosion  had  taken  place,  and  then  return  to  her 
nest.  The  workmen,  observing  this,  narrated  it  to  their 
employers,  and  it  was  also  told  to  visitors  who  came  to  view 
the  quarry. 

The  visitors  naturally  expressed  a  wish  to  witness  so  curious 
a  specimen  of  intellect ;  but  as  the  rock  could  not  always  be 
ready  to  be  blasted  when  visitors  came,  the  bell  was  rung 
instead,  and  for  a  few  times  answered  the  same  purpose. 
The  thrush  flew  down  close  to  where  they  stood  ;  but  she 
perceived  that  she  was  trifled  with,  and  it  interfered  with  her 
process  of  incubation  :  the  consequence  was,  that  afterwards, 
when  the  bell  was  rung,  she  would  peep  over  the  ledge  to 
ascertain  if  the  workmen  did  retreat,  and  if  they  did  not  she 
would  remain  where  she  was,  propably  saying  to  herself,  "No, 
no,  gentlemen  ;  I'm  not  to  be  roused  off  my  eggs  merely  for 
your  amusement." 

Some  birds  have  a  great  deal  of  humour  in  them,  particu- 
larly the  raven.  One  that  belonged  to  me  was  the  most 
mischievous  and  amusing  creature  I  ever  met  with.  He 
would  get  into  the  flower-garden,  go  to  the  beds  where  the 
gardener  had  sowed  a  great  variety  of  seeds,  with  sticks  put 
in  the  ground  with  labels,  and  then  he  would  amuse  himself 
with  pulling  up  every  stick,  and  laying  them  in  heaps  of  ten 
or  twelve  on  the  path.  This  used  to  irritate  the  old  gardener 
very  much,  who  would  drive  him  away.  The  raven  knew 
that  he  ought  not  to  do  it,  or  he  would  not  have  done 
it.  He  would  soon  return  to  his  mischief,  and  when  the 
gardener  again  chased  him  (the  old  man  could  not  walk 
very  fast),  the  raven  would  keep  just  clear  of  the  rake  or 
hoe  in  his  hand,  dancing  back  before  him,  and  singing  as 
121- 


DIARY  ON   THE  CONTINENT 

plain  as  a  man  could,  "  Tol  de  rol  cle  rol ;  tol  de  rol  de 
rol !  "  with  all  kinds  of  mimicking  gestures.  The  bird  is 
alive  now,  and  continues  the  same  meritorious  practice 
whenever  he  can  find  an  opportunity. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

JUNE,  Steam-boat  Princess  Victoria. 

IT  certainly  appears  that  the  motion  of  a  steam-vessel  pro- 
duces more  nausea  than  that  of  a  sailing  vessel ;  and  people 
appear  to  suffer  in  some  degree  in  proportion  to  the  power  of 
the  engines.  This  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  vibration  of 
the  vessel  increasing  in  the  same  ratio. 

We  are  now  in  a  vessel  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  horse- 
power, and  the  consequence  is  that  the  passengers  are  as 
sick  as  two  hundred  and  fifty  horses.  The  effect  of  the 
vibration  of  the  after  part  of  the  vessel  amounts  to  the 
ridiculous. 

When  dinner  was  put  on  the  table  we  had  no  occasion 
for  a  bell  to  announce  it,  for  every  glass  on  the  table  was 
dancing  to  its  own  jingling  music.  And  when  the  covers 
were  taken  off,  it  was  still  more  absurd — everything  in  the 
dishes  appeared  to  be  infected  with  St.  Vitus's  dance.  The 
boiled  leg  of  mutton  shook  its  collops  of  fat  at  a  couple  of 
fowls  which  figured  in  a  sarabande  round  and  round  their 
own  dish — roast  beef  shifted  about  with  a  slow  and  stately 
movement — a  ham  glissc'cd  croisee  from  one  side  to  the  other 
— tongues  wagged  that  were  never  meant  to  \vag  again — • 
bottles  reeled  and  fell  over  like  drunken  men,  and  your  piece 
of  bread  constantly  ran  away  and  was  to  be  pulled  back  into 
its  proper  place.  It  was  a  regular  jig-a-jig — a  country-dance 
of  pousette,  down  the  middle,  and  right  and  left. 

The  communication  of  motion  was  strange ;  the  whole 
company,  seated  on  long  forms,  were  jig-a-jigging  up  and 
down  together— your  knife  jigged  and  your  fork  jigged — • 
even  the  morsel  which  was  put  into  your  mouth  gave  one 
more  jump  before  it  could  be  seized.  However,  we  jigged 
it  to  some  purpose ;  for  in  eighteen  hours  and  a  half  we 
passed  from  London  to  Antwerp. 
125 


OLLA    PODRIDA 

The  English  are  naturally  great  voyageitrs :  the  feeling  is 
inherent  from  our  insular  position.  I  have  been  reflecting 
whether  I  can  recollect,  in  my  whole  life,  ever  to  have  been 
three  months  in  one  place,  but  I  cannot,  nor  do  I  believe 
that  I  ever  was — not  even  when  sent  to  school ;  for  I  used 
to  run  away  every  quarter,  just  to  see  how  my  family  were — 
an  amiable  weakness  which  even  flogging  could  not  eradicate. 
And  then  I  was  off  to  sea ;  there  I  had  my  wish,  as  Shak- 
speare  says,  borne  away  by  "the  viewless  winds,  and  blown 
With  restless  violence  about  the  pendent  world,"  north,  south, 
east,  and  west;  one  month  freezing,  the  next  burning;  all 
nations,  all  colours — white,  copper,  brown,  and  black  ;  all 
scenery,  from  the  blasted  pine  towering  amidst  the  frost  and 
snow,  to  the  cocoa-nut  waving  its  leaves  to  the  sea-breeze. 
Well,  "  homekeeping  youths  have  homely  wits,"  says  the 
same  author ;  and  he  has  told  more  truth  than  any  man  who 
ever  wrote.  I  certainly  did  hear  of  one  young  man  who  did 
not  gain  much  by  travelling ;  he  was  a  banker's  clerk,  and 
obtained  three  months'  vacation  to  go  on  the  Continent.  He 
landed  at  Ostend,  and  the  next  day  found  himself  in  the 
track-shuyt  that  is  towed  by  horses  from  Bruges  to  Ghent. 
The  cabins  were  magnificent,  velvet  and  gold ;  the  down 
cushions  luxurious,  the  dinner  and  breakfast  sumptuous,  the 
wine  excellent,  the  bedrooms  comfortable,  and  the  expense 
moderate.  Moreover,  the  motion  was  imperceptible.  What 
could  a  man  wish  more?  He  arrived  at  Ghent,  and  could 
not  make  his  mind  up  to  quit  this  barge,  so  he  returned  in 
her  to  Bruges,  and  then  back  again  to  Ghent ;  and  thus  he 
continued  between  the  two  towns,  backwards  and  forwards, 
until  the  three  months'  leave  had  expired,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  return  to  the  desk.  I  have  never  yet  made  up  my  mind 
whether  this  personage  was  a  wise  man  or  a  fool. 

But  until  the  opening  of  the  Continent,  the  English  were 
only  voyageurs,  not  travellers ;  and  that,  after  having  been 
so  iong  debarred,  they  should  be  desirous  of  visiting  the 
various  portions  of  Europe  is  not  only  natural  but  praise- 
worthy ;  but  that  they  should  make  the  Continent  their 
residence — should  expatriate  themselves  altogether,  is  to  me 
a  source  of  astonishment  as  well  as  of  regret. 

The  excuse  offered  is  the  cheapness.  It  is  but  an  excuse, 
for  I  deny  it  to  be  the  fact.  I  have  visited  most  places,  with 
126 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

and  without  a  family,  and  I  will  positively  assert,  not  for  the 
benefit  of  others  who  have  already  expatriated  themselves, 
but  as  a  check  to  those  who  feel  so  inclined,  that  they  will 
discover  too  soon  that,  at  less  expense,  they  can  command 
more  good  living  and  substantial  comforts  in  England  than 
in  any  part  of  the  Continent  they  may  fix  upon  as  their 
habitation. 

Let  us  enter  a  little  into  the  subject.  First,  as  to  the 
capitals,  Paris,  Brussels,  &c. 

Let  it  first  be  remembered  that  we  have  no  longer  war 
prices  in  England,  that  almost  every  article  has  fallen  from 
thirty-five  to  fifty  per  cent.  It  is  true  that  some  trades- 
people who  are  established  as  fashionable,  keep  up  their 
prices ;  but  it  is  not  absolutely  necessary  to  employ  them, 
as  there  are  those  equally  skilled  who  are  more  moderate. 
But  even  the  most  fashionable  have  been  obliged,  to  a  certain 
degree,  to  lower  their  prices ;  and  their  present  prices,  re- 
duced as  they  are,  will  most  assuredly  die  with  them. 

Everything  will,  by  degrees,  find  its  level ;  but  this  level  is 
not  to  be  found  at  once.  Should  peace  continue,  ten  years 
from  this  date  will  make  a  great  alteration  in  every  article, 
not  only  of  necessity,  but  of  luxury ;  and  then,  after  having 
been  the  dearest,  England  will  become  the  cheapest  resi- 
dence in  the  world.  House  rent  in  the  capitals  abroad 
is  certainly  as  dear,  if  not  dearer  than  it  is  in  England. 
There  are  situations  more  or  less  fashionable  in  every 
metropolis ;  and  if  you  wish  to  reside  in  those  quarters, 
you  pay  accordingly.  It  is  true  that,  by  taking  a  portion 
of  a  house,  you  to  a  certain  degree  indemnify  yourself — • 
a  first,  second,  or  third  storey,  with  a  common  staircase 
loaded  with  dirt  and  filth ;  but  is  this  equal  to  the  comfort 
of  a  clean  English  house,  in  which  you  have  your  own 
servants,  and  are  not  overlooked  by  your  neighbours  ?  If 
they  were  to  let  our  houses  in  floors  in  England,  as  they 
do  in  Paris  and  elsewhere,  a  less  sum  woul«  be  demanded. 
You  may  procure  a  handsome  house  in  a  fashionable  quarter, 
well  furnished,  in  London,  for  £300  per  annum.  Go  to 
the  Place  Vendome,  or  those  quarters  styled  the  English 
quarters,  at  Paris,  and  which  are  by  no  means  the  most 
fashionable  quarters,  and  you  will  pay  for  a  handsome  front 
floor  700  francs  per  month ;  so  that  for  one  floor  of  a 
127 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

house  in  Paris  you  will  pay  £336  per  annum,  when  in 
London  you  will  obtain  the  whole  house  for  £300.  The 
proprietor  of  the  Paris  house,  therefore,  receives  much 
more  by  letting  his  floors  separate  than  the  English  do. 
The  common  articles  of  necessity  are  as  dear,  if  not  dearer 
abroad ;  the  octroi  duty  upon  all  that  enters  the  barriers 
raising  the  price  excessively.  Meat  at  Paris  or  Brussels 
is  as  dear  as  in  London,  and  not  so  good ;  it  is  as  dear 
because  they  charge  you  the  same  price  all  round,  about 
5d.  per  pound,  independent  of  its  inferiority  and  the 
villainous  manner  in  which  it  is  cut  up.  Our  butchers 
only  butcher  the  animal,  but  foreign  butchers  butcher 
the  meat.  Poultry  is  as  dear;  game  much  dearer;  and 
so  is  fish.  Indeed,  fish  is  not  only  dear,  but  scarce  and 
bad.  Horses  and  carriages  are  quite  as  dear  abroad,  in 
the  capitals,  as  in  London.  Clothes  are  in  some  respects 
cheaper,  in  others  dearer,  especially  articles  of  English 
manufacture,  which  are  more  sought  after  than  any  others. 

Amusements  are  said  to  be  cheaper ;  but,  admitting  that, 
the  places  of  amusement  are  oftener  resorted  to,  and  in 
consequence  as  much  money  is  spent  abroad  as  in  England. 
It  is  true  that  there  are  an  immense  number  of  theatres 
in  Paris,  and  that  most  of  them  are  very  reasonable  in 
their  charges  for  admission ;  but  be  it  recollected  that 
there  are  not  above  three  of  them  which  are  considered 
fashionable,  if  even  respectable  ;  and  there  the  prices  are 
sufficiently  high.  If  people  went  to  Sadler's  Wells,  the 
Coburg,  Victoria,  Queen's  Theatre,  Astley's,  and  other 
minor  theatres  in  London,  as  they  do  to  the  Theatre  St. 
Martin,  Gymnase,  and  Varietes  at  Paris,  they  would  find 
no  great  difference  in  the  prices. 

What,  then,  is  there  cheaper  ?  Wine.  I  grant  it ;  and, 
it  is  also  asserted,  the  education  of  children.  We  will  pass 
over  these  two  last  points  for  the  present,  and  examine 
whether  living  is  cheaper  on  the  Continent,  provided  you 
do  not  live  in  any  of  the  capitals. 

That  at  Tours  and  other  places  in  the  south  of  France, 
at  Genoa,  at  Bruges,. in  Belgium,  you  may  live  much  cheaper 
than  in  London,  I  grant ;  but  if  any  one  means  to  assert 
that  you  can  live  cheaper  than  in  the  country  in  England, 
I  deny  it  altogether.  People  go  abroad  and  select  the 
128 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

cheapest  parts  of  the  Continent  to  live  in.  If  they  were  to 
do  the  same  in  England,  they  would  find  that  they  could 
live  much  cheaper  and  much  better ;  for  instance,  in  Devon- 
shire, Cornwall,  and  Wales,  and,  indeed,  in  almost  every 
county  in  England. 

The  fact  is,  it  is  not  the  cheapness  of  the  living  which 
induces  so  many  people  to  reside  abroad.  There  are  many 
reasons ;  and  as  I  wish  to  be  charitable,  I  will  put  forward 
the  most  favourable  ones. 

In  England  we  are  money-making  people,  and  we  have 
the  aristocracy  of  wealth  as  well  as  the  aristocracy  of  rank. 
It  has  long  been  the  custom  for  many  people  to  live  beyond 
their  incomes,  and  to  keep  up  an  appearance  which  their 
means  have  not  warranted.  Many,  especially  the  landed 
proprietors,  finding  their  rentals  reduced  from  various  causes, 
have  been  necessitated  to  retrench.  They  were  too  proud 
to  put  down  their  carriages  and  establishments  before  the 
eyes  of  those  who  had  perhaps  looked  upon  them  with 
envy,  and  whose  derision  or  exultation  they  anticipated. 
They  therefore  have  retired  to  the  Continent,  where  a 
carriage  is  not  necessary  to  prove  that  you  are  a  gentleman. 
Should  those  return  who  have  emigrated  for  the  above 
reasons,  they  would  find  that  this  striving  for  show  is  hardly 
perceptible  now  in  England.  Those  who  have  remained 
have  either  had  sense  enough,  or  have  been  forced  by  cir- 
cumstances to  reduce  their  expenditure. 

Another  cause  is  the  easy  introduction  into  what  is  called 
good  society  abroad  on  the  Continent,  but  which  is  in  reality 
very  bad  society.  Certainly,  there  are  a  sufficient  number 
of  Counts,  Viscounts,  and  Marquesses  to  associate  with  ;  but 
in  France  high  birth  is  not  proved  by  titles,  which  are  of 
little  or  no  value,  and  do  not  even  establish  gentility.  This 
society  may  certainly  be  entered  into  at  a  much  less  expense 
than  that  of  England,  especially  in  the  metropolis ;  but 
depend  upon  it,  there  is  a  species  of  society  dear  at  any 
price. 

With  respect  to  education  of  children,  that  boys  may 
receive  advantage  from  a  Continental  education  I  admit ; 
but  woe  be  to  the  mother  who  entrusts  her  daughter  to  the 
ruin  of  a  French  Pension. 

In  England  there  are  many  excellent  schools  in  the 
129  i 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

country,  as  cheap  and  cheaper  than  on  the  Continent ;  but 
the  schoolmasters  near  London,  generally  speaking,  are 
ruining  themselves  by  their  adherence  to  the  old  system, 
and  their  extravagant  terms.  The  system  of  education  on 
the  Continent  is  certainly  superior  to  that  of  England,  and 
the  attention  to  the  pupils  is  greater ;  of  course,  there  are 
bad  schools  abroad  as  well  as  in  England ;  but  the  balance 
is  much  in  favour  of  those  on  the  Continent,  with  the  advan- 
tage of  being  at  nearly  one-half  the  expense.  A  great 
alteration  has  taken  place  in  modern  education ;  the  living 
languages  and  mathematics  have  been  found  to  be  preferable 
to  the  classics  and  other  instruction  still  adhered  to  in  the 
English  schools. 

I  have  always  considered,  and  have  every  reason  to  be 
confirmed  in  my  opinion,  that  the  foundation  of  all  education 
is  mathematics.  Everything  else  may  be  obtained  by  rote, 
and  without  thinking  ;  but  from  the  elements  of  arithmetic 
up  to  Euclid  and  algebra,  no  boy  can  work  his  task  without 
thinking.  I  never  yet  knew  a  man  who  was  a  good  mathe- 
matician who  was  not  well-informed  upon  almost  every 
point ;  and  the  reason  is  clear — mathematics  have  prepared 
his  mind  to  receive  and  retain.  In  all  foreign  schools  this 
important  branch  of  education  is  more  attended  to  than  it 
is  in  England  ;  and  that  alone  would  be  a  sufficient  reason 
for  me  to  give  them  the  preference.  In  point  of  morals, 
I  consider  the  schools  of  both  countries  much  upon  a  par ; 
although,  from  the  system  abroad  of  never  debasing  a  child 
by  corporal  punishment,  I  give  the  foreign  schools  the 
preference  even  in  that  point. 

I  consider,  then,  that  boys  are  better  educated  abroad  than 
in  England,  and  acquire  much  more  correctly  the  living 
languages,  which  are  of  more  use  to  them  than  the  classics. 
So  much  I  can  say  in  favour  of  the  Continent ;  but  in  every 
other  respect  I  consider  the  advantage  in  favour  of  England. 
Young  women  who  have  been  brought  up  abroad  I  consider, 
generally  speaking,  as  unfitted  for  English  wives  ;  and  that 
in  this  opinion  I  am  not  singular,  I  know  well  from  conver- 
sation with  young  men  at  the  clubs  and  elsewhere.  Mothers 
who  have  returned  with  their  daughters  full  of  French 
fashions  and  ideas,  and  who  imagine  that  they  will  inevitably 
succeed  in  making  good  matches,  would  be  a  little  mortified 
130 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

and  surprised  to  hear  the  young  men,  when  canvassing 
among  themselves  the  merits  of  the  other  sex,  declare  that 
"  such  a  young  lady  may  be  very  handsome  and  very  clever, 
but — she  has  received  a  Continental  education,  and  that  won't 
do  for  them."  Many  mothers  imagine,  because  their 
daughters  are  bold  and  free  in  their  manners,  and  talk  and 
laugh  loud,  are  surrounded  by  young  men,  while  the  modest 
girl,  who  holds  aloof,  is  apparently  neglected,  that  their 
daughters  are  more  admired ;  but  this  is  a  great  mistake. 
Men  like  that  boldness,  that  coquetry,  that  dash,  if  I  may 
use  the  term,  because  it  amuses  for  the  time  being ;  but 
although  they  may  pay  attention  to  Avomen  on  that  account, 
marrying  them  is  quite  another  affair.  No :  the  modest, 
retiring  girl,  who  is  apparently  passed  by,  becomes  the  wife ; 
the  others  are  flattered  before  their  faces,  and  laughed  at 
behind  their  backs.  It  certainly  is  unmanly  on  the  part  of 
our  sex  to  behave  in  this  manner,  to  encourage  young  women 
in  their  follies,  and  ruin  them  for  their  own  amusement ;  as 
Shakspeare  says — 

"  Shame  to  him  whose  cruel  striking 
Kills  for  faults  of  his  own  liking." 

But  so  it  is,  and  so  it  will  be  as  long  as  the  world  lasts,  and 
mankind  is  no  better  than  it  is  at  present. 

If  then,  as  I  have  asserted,  there  is  so  little  to  be  gained 
by  leaving  a  comfortable  home,  what  is  the  inducement 
which  takes  so  many  people  abroad  to  settle  there  ?  I  am 
afraid  that  the  true  reason  has  been  given  by  the  author 
whom,  I  now  quote.  Speaking  of  the  French  metropolis, 
he  says — 

"I  have  been  lately  trying  to  investigate  the  nature  of 
the  charm  which  renders  Paris  so  favourite  a  sojourn  of 
the  English. 

"  In  point  of  gaiety  (for  gaiety  read  dissipation)  it  affords 
nothing  comparable  with  that  of  London.  A  few  minis- 
terial fetes  every  winter  may,  perhaps,  exceed  in  brilliancy 
the  balls  given  in  our  common  routine  of  things;  but  for 
one  entertainment  in  Paris  at  least  thirty  take  place  chez 
nous.  Society  is  established  with  us  on  a  wider  and  more 
splendid  scale.  The  weekly  soirees,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  properly  represent  the  society  of  this  place,  are 
131 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

dull,  meagre,  and  formal  to  the  last  degree  of  formality. 
There  is  no  brilliant  point  of  reunion  as  at  Almack's, — no 
theatre  uniting,  like  our  Italian  opera,  the  charm  of  the 
best  company,  the  best  music,  and  the  best  dancing.  Of 
the  thousand  and  one  theatres  boasted  of  by  the  Parisians, 
only  three  are  of  a  nature  to  be  frequented  by  people  of 
consideration,  the  remainder  being  as  much  out  of  the  ques- 
tion as  the  Pavilion  or  the  Garrick.  Dinner  parties  there 
are  none ;  water  parties  none ;  dejeuners,  unless  given  by  a 
foreign  ambassadress,  none.  A  thousand  accessories  to 
London  amusements  are  here  wanting.  In  the  month  of 
May,  I  am  told,  the  public  gardens  and  the  Bois  de  Boulogne 
become  enchanting.  But  what  is  not  charming  in  the  month 
of  May  ?  Paris,  perhaps,  least  of  all  places  ;  for  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  month  every  French  family  of  note  quits 
the  metropolis  for  its  country  seat,  or  for  sea  or  mineral 
bathing.  Foreigners  and  the  mercantile  and  ministerial 
classes  alone  remain.  What,  then,  I  would  fain  discover, 
constitutes  the  peculiar  merit  of  inducing  persons  uninsti- 
gated  by  motives  of  economy  to  fix  themselves  in  the  comfort- 
less ami  filthy  city,  and  call  it  Paradise  ?  Alas  !  my  solution 
of  the  problem  is  far  from  honourable  to  the  tastes  of  our 
absentees.  In  Paris  people  are  far  less  amenable  than  in  London 
to  the  tribunal  of  public  opinion  ;  or,  as  a  lady  once  very  candidly 
said  to  me,  'One  gets  rid  of  one's  friends  and  relations.' " 

Indeed,  there  are  so  many  petty  annoyances  and  vexations 
of  life  attendant  upon  residents  abroad  that  it  must  require 
some  strong  motive  to  induce  them  to  remain.  Wherever 
the  English  settle  they  raise  the  price  of  everything,  much 
to  the  annoyance  of  the  rentiers  and  respectable  people  of 
the  place,  although  of  advantage  to  the  country  generally. 
The  really  high-bred  and  aristocratic  people  will  not  associate 
with  the  English,  and  look  upon  them  with  any  feeling 
but  goodwill.  With  regard  to  servants,  they  are  invariably 
badly  served,  although  they  pay  two -or  three  times  the 
wages  that  are  paid  by  the  inhabitants,  who,  in  most  places, 
have  made  it  a  rule  never  to  take  a  domestic  that  has  once 
lived  in  an  English  family;  the  consequence  is,  that  those 
engaged  by  the  English  are  of  the  worst  description,  a  sort 
of  pariahs  among  the  community,  who  extort  and  cheat  their 
employers  without  mercy.  If  not  permitted  so  to  do,  they 
132, 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

leave  them  at  a  minute's  warning ;  and  you  cannot  go  to 
any  foreign  colony  of  English  people  without  listening  to 
very  justified  tirades  of  the  villainy  of  the  servants.  Upon 
the  same  principle,  there  are  few  places  abroad  where  the 
tradespeople  have  not  two  prices ;  one  for  the  English,  and 
the  other  for  the  inhabitants. 

I  was  in  company  with  an  English  lady  of  title,  who  gave 
me  a  very  amusing  instance  of  the  insolence  of  the  Belgian 
servants.  She  had  a  large  family  to  bring  up  oh  a  limited 
income,  and  had  taken  up  her  abode  at  Brussels.  It  should 
be  observed  that  the  Belgians  treat  their  servants  like  dogs, 
and  yet  it  is  only  with  the  Belgians  that  they  will  behave 
well.  This  lady,  finding  her  expenses  very  much  exceeding 
her  means,  so  soon  as  she  had  been  some  time  in  the  countrv, 
attempted  a  reformation.  Inquiring  of  some  Belgian  families 
with  whom  she  was  acquainted  what  were  the  just  propor- 
tions allowed  by  them  to  their  servants,  she  attempted  by 
degrees  to  introduce  the  same  system.  The  first  article  of 
wasteful  expenditure  was  bread,  and  she  put  them  upon  an 
allowance.  The  morning  after  she  was  awoke  with  a  loud 
hammering  in  the  saloon  below,  the  reason  of  which  she 
could  not  comprehend  ;  but  on  going  down  to  breakfast  she 
found  one  of  the  long  loaves  made  in  the  country  nailed  up 
with  tenpenny  nails  over  the  mantelpiece.  She  sent  to 
inquire  who  had  done  it,  and  one  of  the  servants  immediately 
replied  that  she  had  nailed  it  there  that  my  lady  might  see 
that  the  bread  did  not  go  too  fast. 

There  is  another  point  on  which  the  English  abroad 
have  long  complained,  and  with  great  justice, — which  is, 
that  in  every  litigation  or  petty  dispute  which  may  appear 
before  a  smaller  or  more  important  tribunal,  from  the  Juge 
de  Paix  to  the  Cour  de  Cassation,  the  verdict  invariably  is 
given  against  them.  I  never  heard  an  instance  to  the  con- 
trary, although  there  may  have  been  some.  In  no  case 
can  an  Englishman  obtain  justice ;  the  detention  of  his 
property  without  just  cause,  all  that  he  considers  as  law 
and  justice  in  his  own  country,  is  overruled  :  he  is  obliged 
to  submit  to  the  greatest  insults,  or  consent  to  the  greatest 
imposition.  This  is  peculiarly  observable  at  Paris  and 
Brussels,  and  it  is  almost  a  jour  de  fete  to  a  large  portion 
of  the  inhabitants  when  they  hear  that  an  Englishman  has 
133 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

been  thrown  into  prison.  It  must,  however,  be  acknow- 
ledged that  most  of  this  arises  not  only  from  the  wish  of 
the  rentiers  or  those  who  live  upon  their  means  (who 
have  these  means  crippled  by  the  concourse  of  English 
raising  the  price  of  every  article),  that  the  English  should 
leave  and  return  to  their  own  country ;  but  also  from  the 
number  of  bad  characters  who,  finding  their  position  in 
society  no  longer  tenable  in  England,  hasten  abroad,  and 
by  their  conduct  leave  a  most  unfavourable  impression 
of  the  English  character,  which,  when  Englishmen  only 
travelled,  stood  high,  but,  now  they  reside  to  economise,  is 
at  its  lowest  ebb ;  for  the  only  charm  which  the  English  had 
in  the  eyes  of  needy  foreigners  was  their  lavishing  their 
money  as  they  passed  through  the  country,  enriching  a 
portion  of  the  community  without  increasing  the  prices  of 
consumption  to  the  whole. 

As  a  proof  of  the  insolence  to  which  the  English  are  sub- 
jected, I  will  give  the  reader  a  verbatim  copy  of  a  letter 
sent  to  me  by  a  friend  not  more  than  a  year  ago.  I  have 
heard  of  such  a  circumstance  taking  place  in  France,  but 
then  the  innkeeper  was  a  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour;  but  this  case  is  even  more  remarkable.  Depend 
upon  it,  those  who  travel  will  find  many  a  Monsieur  Disch 
before  they  are  at  the  end  of  their  journey.  I  will  vouch 
for  the  veracity  of  every  word  in  the  letter : — 

"WiSBADEN,  July  3,  1836. 

"  MY  DEAR  , — As  you  kindly  said  that  you  would  be 

glad  to  hear  of  our  progress  when  any  opportunity  offered 
of  writing  you  a  letter,  I  now  avail  myself  of  some  friends 
passing  through  Brussels  to  let  you  know  that  thus  far  we 
have  proceeded  in  health  and  safety ;  but  whether  we  shall 
complete  our  project  of  wintering  in  Italy  seems  more  and 
more  doubtful,  as  I  believe  the  cholera  to  be  doing  its 
work  pretty  actively  in  some  of  the  states  we  propose  to 
visit ;  and  a  gentleman  told  me  yesterday,  who  has  lately 
left  the  country,  that  the  Pope  is  so  glad  of  an  excuse  to 
keep  heretics  out  of  his  dominions  that  he  has  never  taken 
off  the  quarantine :  so  that,  under  any  circumstances,  we 
must  vegetate  in  some  frontier  hole  for  a  fortnight  before 
we  can  be  admitted;  a  circumstance  in  itself  sufficiently 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

deterring,  in  my  opinion.  Besides  which,  what  with  the 
perplexity  of  the  coinage,  and  the  constant  attempt  at 
pillage  which  we  have  already  met  with,  and  which,  I  am 
told,  is  quadrupled  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  such  a 
counterbalance  exists  to  any  of  the  enjoyments  of  travelling 
that  I  am  heartily  weary  of  the  continual  skirmishing  and 
warfare  I  am  subjected  to ;  warfare  indeed,  as  at  Cologne 
I  was  called  out.  The  story  is  too  good  to  be  lost,  so  I  will 
tell  it  for  your  amusement  and  that  of  our  friends  at 
Brussels ;  moreover,  that  you  may  caution  every  one  against 
Mons.  Disch,  of  the  Cour  Imperiale.  We  had  marchandtcd 
with  Madame  Disch  for  rooms,  who  at  last  agreed  to  our 
terms ;  but  when  the  bill  came,  she  charged  her  own.  We 
remonstrated,  and  the  bill  was  altered ;  but  Mons.  Disch 
made  his  appearance  before  I  could  pay  it,  insisting  on  the 
larger  sum,  saying  his  wife  had  no  business  to  make  a 

bargain    for   him.     I   remonstrated  in  vain,    and    Mrs.  

commenced  most  eloquently  to  state  the  case  :  he  was, 
however,  deaf  to  reason,  argument,  eloquence,  and  beauty. 
At  last  I  said,  '  Do  not  waste  words  on  the  matter,  I  will 
pay  the  fellow  and  have  done  with  him,  taking  care  that 
neither  I  nor  my  friends  will  ever  come  to  his  house  again/ 
at  the  same  time  snatching  the  bill  from  his  hand  :  when 
he  demanded,  in  a  great  fury,  what  I  meant  by  that ; 
exclaiming, '  I  am  Germans  gentlemans, — you  English  gentle- 
mans,  I  challenge  you — I  challenge  you.'  Although  some- 
what wroth  before  this,  I  was  so  amused  that  I  laughed  in 
the  rascal's  face,  which  doubled  his  rage,  and  he  reiterated 
his  mortal  defiance  ;  adding, '  I  was  in  London  last  year  ;  they 
charge  me  twelve — fourteen  shillings  for  my  dinner  at 
coffee-house,  but  I  too  much  gentlemans  to  ask  them  take 
off  one  larding.  I  challenge  you — I  challenge  you.'  I 
then  said,  '  Hold  your  tongue,  sir ;  take  your  money  and  be 
off.'  '  Me  take  money  ! '  replied  he  ;  '  me  take  money  !  No, 
my  servant  take  money ;  I  too  much  gentlemans  to  take 
money.'  Upon  which  the  waiter  swept  the  cash  off  the 
table,  handed  it  to  his  master,  who  immediately  sacked  it 
and  walked  off." 

I  certainly  have  myself  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
idea  of  going  abroad  for  ^conomy  is  most  erroneous.     As 
135 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

I  have  before  observed,  the  only  article,  except  education, 
which  is  cheapec,  is  wine ;  and  I  am  afraid,  considering 
the  thirsty  propensities  of  my  countrymen,  that  is  a  very 
strong  attraction  with  the  nobler  sex.  If  claret  and  all 
other  French  wines  were  admitted  into  England  at  a  much 
lower  duty,  they  would  be  almost  as  cheap  in  England  as 
they  are  in  foreign  capitals ;  and  as  the  increased  con- 
sumption would  more  than  indemnify  the  government,  it 
is  to  be  lamented  that  it  is  not  so  arranged.  Formerly  we 
shut  out  the  French  wines,  and  admitted  those  of  Portugal 
as  our  ancient  ally ;  but  our  ancient  ally  has  shown  any- 
thing but  goodwill  towards  us  lately,  and  we  are  at  all 
events  under  no  further  obligation  to  support  her  interests. 
Let  us  admit  French  wines  in  bottles  at  a  very  low  duty, 
and  then  England  will  be  in  every  respect  as  cheap,  and 
infinitely  more  comfortable  as  a  residence  than  any  part  of 
the  Continent.  The  absentees  who  are  worth  reclaiming 
will  return ;  those  who  prefer  to  remain  on  the  Continent 
are  much  better  there  than  if  they  were  contaminating  their 
countrymen  with  their  presence.  How  true  is  the  follow- 
ing observation  from  the  author  I  before  quoted  on  her 
return  from  abroad  : — • 

"  Home,  home  at  last.  How  clean,  how  cheerful,  how 
comfortable!  I  was  shown  at  Marthieu  the  shabby,  dirty- 
looking  lodgings  where  the  are  economising,  in  penance 

for  the  pleasure  of  one  little  year  spent  in  this  charming 
house  !  Poor  people  !  How  they  must  long  for  England  ! 
how  they  must  miss  the  thousand  trivial  but  essential  con- 
veniences devised  here  for  the  civilisation  of  human  life ! 
What  an  air  of  decency  and  respectfulness  about  the  ser- 
vants !  what  a  feeling  of  homeishness  in  a  house  exclusively 
our  own  !  The  modes  of  life  may  be  easier  on  the  Con- 
tinent,— but  it  is  the  ease  of  a  beggar's  ragged  coat  which 
has  served  twenty  masters,  and  is  twitched  off  and  on  till 
it  scarcely  holds  together,  in  comparison  with  the  decent, 
close-fitting  suit  characteristic  of  a  gentleman." 


136 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

CHAPTER  XXX 

BEUSSELS. 
AUTHORS,  like  doctors,  are  very  apt  to  disagree. 

Reading,  the  other  day,  a  very  amusing  publication,  called 
the  Diary  of  a  Dfeennuyee,  some  passages  in  it  induced 
me  to  fall  back  upon  Henry  Bulwer's  work  on  France. 
Among  his  remarks  upon  literary  influence  in  that  country, 
he  has  the  following : — 

"A  literary  Frenchman,  whom  I  met  not  long  ago  in 
Paris,  said  to  me  that  a  good-natured  young  English  noble- 
man, whom  I  will  not  name,  had  told  him  that  dancers  and 
singers  were  perfectly  well  received  in  English  society,  but 
not  men  of  letters. 

"  Est-il  possible  qu'on  soit  si  barbare  chez  vous  ?  " 

He  subsequently  adds — 

"To  be  known  as  a  writer  is  certainly  to  your  prejudice. 
First,  people  presume  you  are  not  what  they  call  a  gentle- 
man, and  the  grandfather  who,  if  you  were  a  banker  or  a 
butcher,  or  any  other  calling  or  profession,  would  be  left 
quiet  in  his  tomb,  is  evoked  against  you." 

Mr.  Bulwer  then  proceeds  with  a  variety  of  argument 
to  prove  that  literary  men  are  not  Mceccnased  by  either 
the  government  or  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain.  He  points 
out  the  advantages  which  the  French  literati  have  from 
their  Institute,  the  ennoblements,  the  decorations  and 
pensions  which  they  receive,  and  certainly  makes  out  a 
strong  case. 

The  author  of  the  Diary  would  attempt  to  deny  the 
statements  of  Mr.  Bulwer,  but  in  the  very  denial,  she 
admits  all  his  points  but  one — to  wit,  that  they  are  not 
so  well  received  by  the  aristocracy  in  England  as  they  are 
in  France. 

She  says — 

"  What  does  Henry  Bulwer  mean  by  the  assertion  that 
literary  men  are  more  eagerly  welcomed  in  society  here 
than  in  England  ? 

"They  occupy,  perhaps,  a  more  independent  and  honour- 
able position,  are  less  exposed  to  being  lionised  by  patronis- 
ing dowagers,  and  more  sure  of  obtaining  public  preferment; 
137 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

but,  with  the  exception  of  Mignet  and  Merimee — who  are 
courted  for  their  personal  merits  and  official  standing  rather 
than  for  their  literary  distinctions — I  have  scarcely  met  one 
of  them.  To  the  parties  of  the  ministers  of  the  Grand 
Referendaire,  and  other  public  functionaries,  artists  and  men 
of  letters  are  admitted  as  part  of  a  political  system  ;  but  they 
are  not  to  be  found — like  Moore,  Rogers,  Chantrey,  Newton, 
and  others — in  the  boudoirs  of  the  Aite,  or  the  select  fetes  of 
a  Devonshire  house. 

"  The  calling  of  '  un  homme  de  lettres '  is  here,  however,  a 
profession  bearing  its  own  rewards  and  profits,  and  forming 
an  especial  and  independent  class.  In  common  with  the 
artists,  they  look  to  ennoblement  in  the  Academy,  and  under 
the  existing  order  of  things  have  been  richly  endowed  with 
places  and  pensions." 

It  appears,  then,  in  France,  that  to  the  parties  of  ministers, 
&c.,  they  are  admitted  as  a  part  of  the  political  system ;  and 
further,  that  they  have  been  fostered  by  the  government,  by 
being  ennobled  and  richly  endowed  with  places  and  pensions. 
Therefore,  upon  his  opponent's  own  showing,  Henry  Bulwer 
has  made  out  his  case.  In  another  part  of  the  same  work 
there  is  the  following  amusing  passage,  in  advice  given  by  a 
lady  of  fashion  to  her  protegee  upon  entering  into  London 
society : — 

" '  Pore  over  their  books  as  much  as  you  please,  but  do  not 
so  much  as  dip  into  the  authors,'  said  she,  when  I  proposed 
an  introduction  to  one  of  the  most  popular  authors  of  the 
day.  'These  people  expend  their  spirit  on  their  works — 
the  part  that  walks  through  society  is  a  mere  lump  of  'clay, 
like  the  refuse  of  the  wine-press  after  the  wine  has  been 
expressed.  In  conversing  with  a  clever  author,  you  some- 
times see  a  new  idea  brighten  his  eye  or  create  a  smile 
round  his  lip ;  but  for  worlds  he  would  not  give  it  utterance. 
It  belongs  to  his  next  work,  and  is  instantly  booked  in  the 
ledger  of  his  daily  thoughts,  value  3s.  6d.  The  man's  mind 
is  his  mine ;  he  can't  afford  to  work  it  gratis,  or  give  away 
the  produce.'  " 

If  we  are  to  draw  any  inference   from  this  extract,  it  is 

that,  although  some  noblemen  do  extend  their  patronage  to 

literary  men,   at  all    events   the    general   feeling  is   against 

them.     I  must  say  that  I  never  was  more  amused  than  when 

138 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 

I  read  the  above  sarcasm.  There  is  much  truth  in  it,  and 
yet  it  is  not  true.  In  future  when  I  do  say  good  things,  as 
they  call  them,  in  company,  I  shall  know  the  precise  value 
of  my  expenditure  during  the  dinner  or  evening  party  by 
reckoning  up  the  three-and-sixpences.  One  thing  is  clear, 
that  if  an  author  say  half-a-dozen  good  things,  he  fully  pays 
for  his  dinner. 

In  the  "Student"  Henry  Bulwer  makes  some  remarks 
which  range  in  opposition  to  the  author  of  the  above 
Diary.  In  arguing  that  most  authors  may  be  known  by 
their  works,  he  says — 

"  Authors  are  the  only  men  we  really  do  know ;  the  rest 
of  mankind  die  with  only  the  surface  of  their  character 
understood." 

It  appears,  then,  that  people  have  no  excuse  for  being  dis- 
appointed in  authors ;  when  they  meet  them  in  company 
they  have  but  to  read  their  works,  and  if  they  like  the 
works,  they  must  like  the  authors.  Before  I  proceed  I  must 
be  permitted  to  make  a  remark  here.  An  author's  opinion 
given  as  his  own  will  allow  the  public  to  have  an  insight  into 
his  character  and  feelings,  and  the  public  are  justified  in 
forming  their  opinions  of  an  author  upon  such  grounds.  But 
it  too  often  happens  that  the  public  will  form  their  opinion 
of  an  author  from  opinions  put  by  him  into  the  mouths  of 
the  characters  drawn  in  a  work  of  fiction,  forgetting  that  in. 
these  instances  it  is  not  the  author  who  speaks,  but  the 
individuals  which  his  imagination  has  conjured  up  ;  and  that 
the  opinions  expressed  by  these  creatures  of  his  brain, 
although  perfectly  in  keeping  with  the  character,  and 
necessary  to  produce  that  rraisemblance  which  is  the  great 
merit  of  fiction,  may  be  entirely  opposed  to  the  real  senti- 
ments of  the  author.  The  true  merit  of  fiction,  and  that 
which  is  essential  to  its  success,  is  the  power  of  the  author 
at  the  time  that  he  is  writing  to  divest-  himself,  as  it 
were,  of  himself,  and  be  for  the  time  the  essence  of  the 
character  which  he  is  delineating.  It  is,  therefore,  a  great 
injustice  to  an  author  to  accuse  him  of  being  an  infidel 
because  his  infidel  character  is  well  portrayed,  particularly 
as,  if  he  is  equally  fortunate  in  describing  a  character 
vhich  is  perfect,  the  public  do  not  ever  give  him  the 
credit  for  similar  perfection.  That  is  quite  another  affair, 
139 


DLL  A   PODRIDA 

Again,  Edward  Bulwer  says,  in  opposition  to  the  poverty  of 
the  mine : — 

"  A  man  is,  I  suspect,  but  of  a  second-rate  order  whose 
genius  is  not  immeasurably  above  his  works,  —  who  does 
not  feel  within  him  an  inexhaustible  affluence  of  thoughts, 
feelings,  and  invention,  which  he  never  will  have  leisure  to 
embody  in  print.  He  will  die  and  leave  only  a  thousandth 
part  of  his  wealth  to  posterity,  which  is  his  heir." 

I  like  to  bring  all  in  juxtaposition.  There  is  excitement 
in  making  mischief,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  people  are 
so  fond  of  it.  Still,  the  question  at  issue  ought  to  be  fairly 
decided,  and  as  in  case  of  arbitration,  when  the  disputants 
cannot  agree,  a  third  party  is  called  in  by  mutual  consent, 
I  shall  venture  to  take  upon  myself  that  office,  and  will  fairly 
argue  the  point,  as  there  is  more  dependent  upon  it  than,  upon 
the  first  view,  the  question  may  appear  to  merit. 

If  we  turn  back  to  the  last  century,  in  what  position  shall 
we  find  authors? — looking  up  to  patrons  among  the  aristo- 
cracy, and  dedicating  their  works  to  them  in  panegyrics, 
fulsome  from  their  obsequiousness  and  flattery  ?  At  that 
period  the  aristocracy  and  the  people  were  much  wider  apart 
than  they  are  at  present. 

Gradually  the  people  have  advanced,  and  as  they  have 
advanced,  so  have  the  authors  thrown  off  the  trammels  of 
servitude,  and  have  attacked  the  vices  and  follies  as  well  as 
the  privileges  of  those  to  whom  they  once  bowed  the  knee. 

The  advancement  of  the  people,  and  the  lowering  of  the 
aristocracy,  have  both  been  effected  through  the  medium  of 
the  press.  The  position  of  authors  has  been  much  altered. 
Formerly,  we  beheld  such  men  as  Dryden,  Otway,  and  many 
others  (giants  in  their  days)  humbling  themselves  for  bread. 
Now  we  have  seldom  a  dedication,  and  of  those  few  we  have 
the  flattery  is  delicate.  The  authors  look  to  the  public  as 
their  patrons,  and  the  aristocracy  are  considered  but  as  a 
part  and  portion  of  it.  These  remarks  equally  hold  good 
with  respect  to  the  government.  Authors  are  not  to  be 
so  easily  purchased  as  formerly ;  they  prefer  writing  in  con- 
formity with  public  opinion  to  writing  for  government,  be- 
cause they  are  better  remunerated.  Now,  if  it  be  recalled 
to  mind  that,  in  the  rapid  march  of  the  people,  in  their 
assertion  of  their  right  to  a  greater  share  in  the  government 
140 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

of  the  country,  in  the  pointing  out  and  correcting  of  abuses, 
and  in  the  breaking  down  of  all  the  defences  which  have 
gradually  yielded  in  so  many  yeai-s,  it  is  the  authors  and 
the  press  who  have  led  the  van,  and  that  in  these  continual 
inroads  the  aristocracy  have  been  the  party  attacked, — it 
is  no  wonder  that  there  has  arisen,  unwittingly,  perhaps,  on 
the  part  of  the  aristocracy,  a  feeling  against  the  press,  and 
against  authors  in  general. 

The  press  has  been,  and  will  probably  for  a  long  while 
continue  to  be,  the  enemy  of  the  aristocracy;  and  it  is 
hardly  reasonable  to  expect  that  the  aristocracy  should  admit 
the  enemy  within  its  camp.  For,  be  it  observed,  whether 
a  man  write  a  political  pamphlet  or  a  novel,  he  has  still  the 
same  opportunity  of  expressing  his  sentiments,  of  flattering 
the  public  by  espousing  their  opinions;  and  as  a  writer  of 
fiction,  perhaps  his  opinions  have  more  effect  than  as  a 
pamphleteer.  In  the  first  instance  you  are  prepared  to 
expect  a  political  partisan ;  in  the  latter  you  read  for  amuse- 
ment, and  unconsciously  receive  the  bias.  For  one  who 
reads  a  political  pamphlet  (by-the-bye,  they  are  generally 
only  read  by  those  who  are  of  the  same  way  of  thinking 
as  the  author)  there  are  hundreds  who  read  through  a  work 
of  fiction,  so  that  the  opinions  of  the  latter  are  much  more 
widely  disseminated.  Now,  as  most  works  are  written  for 
profit  as  well  as  reputation,  they  are  naturally  so  worded 
as  to  insure  the  goodwill  of  the  majority,  otherwise  they 
would  not  have  so  extensive  a  sale.  The  majority  being 
decidedly  liberal,  every  work  that  now  appears  more  or  less 
attacks  the  higher  orders.  When,  therefore,  a  gentleman 
who  has  been  well  received  in  the  best  society  ventures 
upon  writing  a  work,  it  is  quite  sufficient  to  state  that  he 
is  an  author  (without  his  book  being  read)  to  occasion  him 
to  "lose  caste,"  to  a  certain  degree.  Authors  have  been 
the  enemies  of  the  higher  classes.  You  have  become  an 
author — consequently  you  have  ranked  yourself  with  our 
enemies.  Henry  Bulwer,  therefore,  is  right  where  he  asserts 
that  "to  be  known  as  an  author  is  to  your  prejudice  among 
the  higher  classes." 

Having  made  these  observations  to  point  out  that  the 
aristocracy  and  the  press  are  at  variance,  let  us  now  examine 
into  the  merits  of  authors,  as  mixing  in  society.  And  here, 
141 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

I  think,  it  will  be  proved  that  it  is  more  their  misfortune 
than  their  fault  that  there  should  be  a  prejudice  against 
them.  They  are  overrated  before  they  are  seen,  and  under- 
rated afterwards. 

You  read  the  works  of  an  author — you  are  pleased  with 
them,  and  you  wish  to  become  acquainted  with  the  man. 
You  anticipate  great  pleasure — you  expect  from  his  lips, 
in  impromptu,  the  same  racy  remarks,  the  same  chain  of 
reasoning,  the  same  life  and  vigour,  which  have  cost  him 
so  many  hours  of  labour  and  reflection,  or  which  have  been 
elicited  in  his  happiest  moods,  and  this  from  a  person  who 
comes,  perhaps,  almost  a  total  stranger  into  a  large  company. 
Is  this  fair  or  just  to  him  ?  Did  you  find  any  of  your  other 
friends,  at  first  meeting,  play  the  fiddle  to  a  whole  company 
of  strangers  ?  Are  not  authors  as  reserved  and  shy  as  other 
people — even  more  so  ?  And  yet  you  ask  them,  as  if  they 
were  mountebanks  and  jugglers  with  a  certain  set  of  tricks, 
to  amuse  the  company.  The  very  circumstance  of  being 
aware  that  this  is  expected  of  him  makes  the  man  silent, 
and  his  very  anxiety  to  come  up  to  your  expectations  takes 
away  from  his  power. 

The  consequence  is  that  you  are  disappointed,  and  so 
are  the  company,  to  whom  you  have  announced  that  "  Mr. 
So-and-So "  is  to  meet  them.  Had  you  become  intimate 
with  this  person  you  would,  perhaps,  have  found  the  differ- 
ence, and  that  he  whom  you  pronounced  as  so  great  a 
failure  would  have  turned  out  equally  amusing.  At  the 
same  time,  there  is  some  truth  in  the  remark  of  the 
Desennuyfa  that  "some  authors  will  not  let  out  their  new 
ideas  because  they  require  them  for  their  books."  But, 
as  Bulwer  observes,  they  must  be  but  second-raters,  as  the 
majority  of  authors  are. 

In  many  instances  they  are  punsters ;  but  punning  is  not 
a  standard  of  authorship ;  or,  perhaps,  there  may  be  other 
second-rate  authors  present,  and,  if  so,  they  know  that  they 
are  in  the  company  of  literary  pickpockets. 

To  prove  that  this  remark  of  the  Desennuyee  can  only 
apply  to  second-rate  authors,  let  us  examine  into  the  con- 
versational powers  of  those  who  are  first-rate.  And  here  I 
can  only  speak  of  those  whom  I  have  known — there  may 
be  many  others.  Where  could  you  find  such  conversationists 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

as  Coleridge,  Charles  Lamb,  Sir  John  Malcolm,  and  many 
others,  who  are  now  gone  ?  And  among  those  in  existence 
I  have  but  to  mention  Croker,  Theodore  Hook,  Professor 
Wilson,  Bulwer,  Lockhart,  the  Smiths,  and,  in  the  other 
sex,  Lady  Blessington,  Lady  Morgan,  Mesdames  Somerville, 
Austin,  and  Jameson. 

"  Now,  these  are  all  first-rate  authors  in  their  various 
styles;  and  I  can  challenge  any  one  to  bring  forward  an 
equal  number  out  of  the  whole  mass  who  are  so  powerful 
or  delightful  in  society.  And  there  is  still  more  to  be 
said  in  favour  of  authors.  I  know  many  whose  conversa- 
tion is  superior  to  their  writings ;  I  will  not  name  them, 
as  they,  perhaps,  would  not  consider  this  to  be  a  compli- 
ment ;  but  it  fully  tends  to  disprove  the  remarks  of 
the  Dhcnnuyce  as  to  authors  of  talent  reserving  their 
thoughts  for  their  books ;  for,  on  the  contrary,  when  in 
company,  they  generally  take  the  lead.  Still,  there  is  a 
difference  arising  from  the  variety  of  temperament :  some, 
accustomed  to  mix  constantly  in  society,  will  be  indifferent 
whether  they  are  acquainted  with  the  parties  present  or 
not ;  others,  more  retiring,  require  to  feel  at  their  ease,  and 
it  is  only  in  small  coteries,  and  among  friends,  that  their 
real  value  can  be  appreciated.  Theodore  Hook  is  a  proof 
of  the  former,  the  late  Charles  Lamb  was  of  the  latter. 
Some  shine  most  when  they  have  no  competitors ;  others 
are  only  to  be  brought  out  when  other  men  of  talent  are  in 
company,  and,  like  the  flint  and  steel,  their  sparks  are  only 
to  be  produced  by  collision. 

If  I  might  be  permitted  to  offer  an  opinion  to  the  authors 
themselves,  it  would  be,  not  to  mix  in  general  company, 
but  confine  themselves  to  their  own  friends.  They  would 
stand  much  higher  in  reputation  if  they  adhered  to  this 
plan  ;  above  all,  let  them  avoid  what  the  author  of  the 
Desennuyee  terms  those  "Skinnerian  lion  fe^ds "  given  by 
those  who  have  no  talent  to  appreciate,  and  who,  to  fill 
their  menagerie,  will  mix  you  up  with  foreign  swindlers  and 
home-bred  ruffians.  This  is  most  humiliating,  and  has 
certainly  injured  the  fraternity. 

I  have  but  one  more  remark  to  make.  Authors  in 
England  have  little  to  expect  from  the  government  and 
the  aristocracy.  Pensions  and  honours  have  been  given. 
143 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

but  until  Sir  Robert  Peel  set  a  more  worthy  example,  they 
were  bestowed  for  the  support  of  political  opinions,  not  as 
a  reward  of  talent.  That  the  aristocracy,  with  but  a  few 
exceptions,  have  not  fostered  talent,  is  most  true ;  and 
they  are  now  suffering  from  their  want  of  judgment. 
They  have  shut  their  doors  to  authors,  and  the  authors 
have  been  gradually  undermining  their  power.  To  what 
extent  this  may  be  carried,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but 
one  thing  is  certain,  that  the  press  is  more  powerful  than 
either  king  or  lords,  and  that,  if  the  conflict  continue,  the 
latter  must  yield  to  the  influence  of  the  former,  who  will 
have  ample  retaliation  for  the  neglect  to  which  they  have 
been  subjected. 

What  a  superiority  there  is  in  England  over  France, 
and  every  other  nation,  in  the  periodical  and  daily  press, 
especially  in  the  latter !  Take  up  the  Constitution  ncl, 
or  Journal  des  Dcbats,  at  Paris,  and  then  look  at  the 
broad  double  sheets  of  the  Times  and  other  morning 
papers,  with  the  columns  of  information  and  original  matter 
which  they  contain.  Compare  the  flimsy  sheets,  bad  print- 
ing, and  general  paucity  of  information  of  the  Continental 
daily  press,  with  the  clear  types,  rapid  steam-power  called 
into  action,  the  outlay,  enormous  expenditure,  and  rapid 
information  obtained  by  our  leading  journals  from  all 
quarters  of  the  globe.  I  have  looked  with  astonishment 
and  admiration  at  the  working  of  the  Times  newspaper 
by  its  beautiful  steam-engine  ;  it  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing sights  that  can  be  beheld. 

Nothing  but  the  assistance  of  steam  could,  indeed,  enable 
the  great  daily  newspapers  to  accomplish  their  present 
task  When  the  reader  calls  to  mind  that  the  debates 
in  the  House  are  sometimes  kept  up  till  two  or  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning ;  that  the  reporters,  relieved  every 
twenty  minutes,  have  to  carry  all  their  communications  to 
the  office  ;  that  all  this  matter  has  to  be  arranged,  put  in 
type,  and  then  worked  off;  and  that,  notwithstanding  this, 
the  double  sheet  of  matter  is  on  thousands  and  thousands 
of  tables  by  nine  o'clock  the  next  morning,  it  is  really 
wonderful  how  it  can  be  accomplished.  Saturday  night 
appears  to  be  the  only  night  on  which  those  connected 
yrith  these  immense  undertakings  can  be  said  to  have  any 
14* 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

repose  from  year's  end  to  year's  end.  What  a  life  of  toil ! 
what  an  unnatural  life  must  theirs  be,  who  thus  cater  during 
the  hours  of  darkness  for  the  information  and  amusement  of 
the  mass  who  have  slept  soundly  through  the  night,  and 
rise  to  be  instructed  by  the  labour  of  their  vigils  !  It  can 
be  effected  in  no  other  country  in  the  world.  It  is  another 
link  in  the  great  chain  of  miracles,  which  proves  the  great- 
ness of  England. 

The  editors  of  these  papers  must  have  a  most  onerous 
task.  It  is  not  the  writing  of  the  leading  article  itself, 
but  the  obligation  to  write  that  article  every  day,  whether 
inclined  or  not,  in  sickness  or  in  health,  in  affliction,  distress 
of  mind,  winter  and  summer,  year  after  year,  tied  down 
to  one  task,  remaining  in  one  spot.  It  is  something  like 
the  walking  a  thousand  miles  in  a  thousand  hours.  I  have 
a  fellow-feeling  for  them,  for  I  know  how  a  monthly  period- 
ical will  wear  down  one's  existence.  In  itself  it  appears 
nothing — the  labour  is  not  manifest :  nor  is  it  the  labour — 
it  is  the  continual  attention  which  it  requires.  Your  life 
becomes,  as  it  were,  the  magazine.  One  month  is  no  sooner 
corrected  and  printed  than  on  comes  the  other.  It  is  the 
stone  of  Sisyphus — an  endless  repetition  of  toil — a  con- 
stant weight  upon  the  mind — a  continual  wearing  upon  the 
intellect  and  spirits,  demanding  all  the  exertion  of  your 
faculties,  at  the  same  time  that  you  are  compelled  to  do 
the  severest  drudgery.  To  write  for  a  magazine  is  very  well, 
but  to  edit  one  is  to  condemn  yourself  to  slavery. 

Magazine  writing,  as  it  is  generally  termed,  is  the  most 
difficult  of  all  writing,  and  but  few  succeed  in  it ;  the  reason 
of  which  is  obvious — it  must  always  be  what  is  termed  "  up 
to  the  mark." 

Any  one  who  publishes  a  work  in  one,  two,  or  three 
volumes,  may  be  permitted  to  introduce  a  dull  chapter  or 
two ;  uo  one  remarks  it ;  indeed,  these  dull,  chapters  allow 
the  mind  of  the  reader  to  relax  for  the  time,  and,  strange 
to  say,  are  sometimes  favourable  to  the  author.  But  in 
magazine  writing  these  cannot  be  permitted ;  the  reader 
requires  excitement,  and  whether  the  article  be  political 
or  fictitious,  there  requires  a  condensation  of  matter,  a 
-^ithiness  of  expression  (to  enable  you  to  tell  your  story 
jn  o  small  a  space),  which  is  very  difficult  to  obtain.  Even 
145  K 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

In  continuations  the  same  rule  must  be  adhered  to,  for, 
being  read  month  after  month,  each  separate  portion  must 
be  considered  as  a  whole  and  independent  of  the  other ; 
it  must  not,  therefore,  flag  for  one  minute.  A  proof  of 
this  was  given  in  that  very  remarkable  production  in 
Blackrvood's  Magazine,  styled  "  Tom  Cringle's  Log."  Every 
separate  portion  was  devoured  by  the  public — they  waited 
impatiently  for  the  first  of  the  month,  that  they  might  read 
the  continuation,  and  every  one  was  delighted,  even  to  its 
close,  because  the  excitement  was  so  powerful.  Some  time 
afterwards  the  work  was  published  in  two  volumes,  and 
then  what  was  the  consequence  ? — people  complained  that 
it  was  overcharged — that  it  was  too  full  of  excitement— 
gave  no  repose.  This  was  true ;  when  collected  together  it 
had  that  fault — a  very  good  one,  by-the-bye,  as  well  as  a  very 
uncommon  one ;  but  they  did  not  perceive  that  until  it 
was  all  published  together.  During  the  time  that  it  came 
out  in  fragments  they  were  delighted.  Although,  in  this 
instance,  the  writing  was  overcharged,  still  it  proved,  from 
the  popularity  it  obtained  when  it  appeared  in  the  magazine, 
what  force  and  condensation  of  matter  is  required  in  writing 
for  periodicals. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

1  AM  grave  to-day ;  it  is  the  birthday  of  one  of  my  chil- 
dren— a  day  so  joyful  in  youth,  in  more  advanced  life  so 
teeming  with  thought  and  serious  reflections.  How  happy 
the  child  is — and  it  is  its  happiness  which  has  made  me 
grave. 

How  changed  are  our  feelings  as  we  advance  in  life  ! — 
Our  responsibility  is  increased  with  each  fleeting  year.  In 
youth  we  live  but  for  ourselves — self  predominates  in  every- 
thing. In  mature  age,  if  we  have  fulfilled  the  conditions 
of  our  tenure,  we  feel  that  we  must  live  for  our  children. 
Fortunately,  increase  of  years  weans  us  from  those  selfish 
and  frivolous  expenses  which  youth  requires,  and  we  feel  it 
little  or  no  sacrifice  to  devote  to  our  children  the  means 
which,  before,  we  considered  so  important  to  the  gratifica- 
tion of  our  pride  and  our  ambition.  Not  that  we  have  lost 
146 


DIARY   ON   THE  CONTINENT 

either  our  pride  or  our  ambition,  but  they  have  become 
centred  in  other  objects  dearer  to  us  than  ourselves — in 
the  race  springing  up — to  whom  we  shall  leave  our  names 
and  worldly  possessions  when  our  own  career  is  closed. 

Worn  out  with  the  pursuit  of  vanity,  we  pause  at  a 
certain  age,  and  come  to  the  conclusion  that  in  this  life  we 
require  but  little  else  than  to  eat,  drink,  prepare  for  a  future 
existence,  and  to  die. 

What  a  miserable  being  must  an  old  bachelor  be  ! — he 
vegetates,  but  he  cannot  be  said  to  exist — he  passes  his 
life  in  one  long  career  of  selfishness,  and  dies.  Strange, 
that  children,  and  the  responsibility  attached  to  their  wel- 
fare, should  do  more  to  bring  a  man  into  the  right  path  than 
any  denunciations,  from  holy  writ  or  holy  men  !  How  many 
who  might  have  been  lost,  have  been,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
saved  from  the  feeling  that  they  must  leave  their  children 
a  good  name,  and  must  provide  for  their  support  and  ad- 
vancement in  life  !  Yes,  and  how  many  women,  after  a  life 
so  frivolous  as  to  amount  to  wickedness,  have,  from  their 
attachment  to  their  offspring,  settled  down  into  the  redeem^ 
ing  position  of  careful,  anxious,  and  serious-minded  mothers  ! 

Such  reflections  will  rise  upon  a  birthday,  and  many  more 
of  chequered  hopes  and  fears.  How  long  will  these  flowers, 
now  blossoming  so  fairly,  be  permitted  to  remain  with  us  ? 
Will  they  be  mowed  down  before  another  birthday,  or  will 
they  be  permitted  to  live  to  pass  through  the  ordeal  of  this 
life  of  temptation  ?  How  will  they  combat  ?  Will  they  fall 
and  disgrace  their  parents,  or  will  they  be  a  pride  and 
blessing  ?  Will  it  please  Heaven  to  allow  them  to  be  not 
too  much  tempted,  not  overcome  by  sickness,  or  that  they 
shall  be  severely  chastised  ?  Those  germs  of  virtue  now 
appearing,  those  tares  now  growing  up  with  the  corn — will 
the  fruit  bring  forth  good  seed  ?  will  the  latter  be  effectu- 
ally rooted  up  by  precept  and  example  i  How  much  to 
encourage !  and  how  much  to  check  !  Virtues  in  excess 
are  turned  to  vice — liberality  becomes  extravagance — pru- 
dence, avarice  —  courage,  rashness  —  love,  weakness — even 
religion  may  turn  to  fanaticism — and  superior  intellect  may, 
in  its  daring,  mock  the  power  which  granted  it.  Alas, 
what  a  responsibility  is  here  ?  A  man  may  enjoy  or  suffer 
when  he  lives  for  himself  alone,  but  he  is  doubly  blest  or 
U7 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

doubly  cursed  when,  in  his  second  stage,  he  is  visited  through 
his  children.  What  a  blessing  is  our  ignorance  of  the  future! 
Fatal,  indeed,  to  all  happiness  in  this  world  would  be  a  fore- 
knowledge of  that  which  is  to  come.  We  have  but  to  do 
our  duty  and  hope  for  the  best,  acknowledging,  however 
severe  may  be  the  dispensation,  that  whatever  is,  or  is  to 
be,  is  right. 

How  strange,  although  we  feel  in  the  midst  of  life  we  are 
in  death,  that  mortals  should  presume  to  reduce  it  to  a  nice 
calculation,  and  speculate  upon  it !  I  can  sell  my  life  now 
to  an  annuity-office  for  twenty  years'  purchase  or  more,  and 
they  will  share  a  dividend  upon  it.  Well,  if  ever  I  do  insure 
my  life,  I  hope  that  by  me  they  will  lose  money,  for,  like 
everybody  else  in  this  world,  I  have  a  great  many  things  to 
do  before  I  die.  There  was  but  one  man  I  ever  heard  of, 
who  could  lie  down  and  die,  saying,  "Now,  Lord,  let  Thy 
servant  depart  in  peace."  I  have  no  warning  yet,  no  screw 
is  loose  in  this  complex  mechanism ;  and  yet,  this  very  day, 
a  chimney-pot  may  fall  on  my  head,  and  put  an  end  to  all 
my  calculations. 

It  is  right  that  the  precarious  tenure  of  our  existence 
should  not  be  wholly  forgotten,  but  certainly  was  never  in- 
tended that  it  should  be  borne  on  the  mind,  for,  if  we  had 
ever  in  our  memory  that  we  may  die  this  very  hour,  what  a 
check  there  would  be  to  all  energy,  and  enterprise,  and  in- 
dustry. Who  would  speculate  with  the  anticipation  of  large 
returns  upon  some  future  day,  if  he  did  not  calculate  upon 
living  to  receive  them  ?  We  should  all  stop  to  say  Cui  bono  ? 
If  it  were  not  that  our  hopes  support  us,  not  only  support  us 
in  all  reasonable,  but  even  unreasonable  calculations,  the 
world  would  be  at  a  standstill.  No,  no  !  we  have  our  duty 
to  perform  towards  our  God;  but  we  are  also  enjoined  to 
perform  our  duty  towards  our  neighbour.  The  uncertainty 
of  life  is  to  be  remembered  as  a  check  to  our  worldly 
passions,  but  not  as  a  drag-chain  to  our  worldly  career. 


148 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 


CHAPTER  XXXH 

En  route,  August  1837. 

J  HERE  is  a  great  art  in  packing  property,  and  in  it  our 
profession  are  fortunately  adepts.  A  midshipman,  for  instance, 
contrives  to  put  everything  at  the  bottom  of  his  chest.  No 
very  easy  matter  to  pack  up  and  arrange  a  carriageful  of 
children,  two  birds,  and  a  spaniel  puppy — in  all,  twelve 
living  beings  with  all  their  appendages,  down  to  the  birds' 
and  dog's  tails.  As  for  packing  up  a  dog,  that  is  impossible  ; 
the  best  way  is  to  pack  it  off.  Canary  birds  travel  very  well 
in  the  carriage  lamps,  in  the  summer  time,  when  they  are  not 
lighted  ;  and  I  mention  this  as  a  hint  to  those  who  travel 
with  such  indispensable  appendages.  Independent  of  their 
being  out  of  the  way,  their  appearance  behind  the  glass  is 
a  source  of  great  amusement  to  those  who  are  standing  by 
where  you  change  horses. 

Stopped  at  St.  Frond,  and  asked  what  was  to  be  seen. 
Nothing  here  but  churches  and  monks.  One  of  the  little 
girls,  three  years  old,  looked  with  avidity  at  the  Virgin  Mary, 
three  feet  high,  in  gold  brocade.  The  old  verger,  observing 
this,  led  her  nearer  to  it,  ascribing  her  admiration  probably 
to  piety,  when,  to  his  horror,  she  screamed  out,  "  Quel  Jolie 
poupee  !  "  Solomon  says,  "  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  shall 
ye  be  taught  wisdom."  The  old  man  dropped  her  hand,  and 
looked  as  if  he  would  have  lighted  the  fagots  had  she  been 
bound  to  the  stake,  as  she,  in  his  opinion,  deserved. 

The  perseverance  of  Belgian  beggars  is  most  remarkable, 
and  equally  annoying.  The  best  way  is  to  take  out  your 
purse,  and  pretend  to  throw  something  over  their  heads  ; 
they  turn  back  to  look  for  it ;  and  if  you  keep  pointing 
farther  off,  you  distance  them.  On  the  whole,  I  consider 
that  it  is  much  more  advisable  not  to  give  to  beggars  than 
to  relieve  them.  Begging  is  demoralising,  and  should  be 
discountenanced  in  every  country.  If  children  are  brought 
up  to  whine,  cry,  and  humiliate  themselves,  as  in  Belgium, 
that  feeling  of  pride  and  independence  in  early  youth,  which 
leads  to  industry  in  after  life,  is  destroyed.  And  yet  the 
aged  and  infirm  would  appear  to  be  proper  objects  of  charity. 
149 


OLLA    PODRIDA 

In  many  cases,  of  course,  they  must  be ;  but  to  prove  how 
you  may  be  deceived,  I  will  state  a  circumstance  which 
occurred  to  me  some  years  ago. 

I  was  driving  up  the  road  with  a  friend.  He  was  one 
of  the  pleasantest  and  most  honest  men  that  nature  ever 
moulded.  His  death  was  most  extraordinary  :  of  a  nervous 
temperament,  ill-health  ended  in  aberration  of  intellect. 
At  that  time  Lord  Castlereagh  had  ended  his  life  of  over- 
excitement  by  suicide  ;  the  details  in  the  newspapers  were 
read  by  him,  and  he  fancied  that  he  was  Lord  Castlereagh. 
Acting  precisely  by  the  accounts  recorded  in  the  news- 
papers, he  went  through  the  same  forms,  and  actually 
divided  his  carotid  artery,  using  his  penknife,  as  had  done 
the  unfortunate  peer.  Peace  be  with  him  !  To  proceed. 
I  was  driving  in  a  gig,  a  distance  of  about  forty  miles  from 
town,  on  the  Northern  Road,  when  at  the  bottom  of  a 
steep  hill,  we  fell  in  with  a  group  who  were  walking  up 
it.  It  consisted  of  a  venerable  old  man,  with  his  grey 
locks  falling  down  on  his  shoulders,  dressed  as  a  country- 
man, with  a  bundle  on  a  stick  over  his  shoulder  ;  with  him 
were  a  young  man  and  woman,  both  heavily  burdened,  and 
five  children  of  different  sizes.  The  appearance  of  the  old 
man  was  really  patriarchal,  and  there  was  a  placidity  in  his 
countenance  which  gave  a  very  favourable  impression.  For 
a  short  time  they  continued  breasting  the  hill  on  the  path- 
way :  when  about  one-third  up,  the  old  man  crossed  the 
road  to  us,  as  our  horse  was  walking  up,  and  taking  off  his 
hat,  said,  "Gentlemen,  if  not  too  great  a  liberty,  may  I 

ask    how   far   it    is    to    •  ? "    mentioning    a   town   about 

twelve  miles  off.  We  told  him,  and  he  replied,  "That's 
a  long  way  for  old  legs  like  mine,  and  young  legs  of  tired 
children."  He  then  informed  us  that  they  had  lost  their 
employment  in  the  country,  and  that,  with  his  son  and 
daughter  and  their  children,  he  had  gone  to  town  to  pro- 
cure work,  but  had  been  unsuccessful,  and  they  were  now 
on  their  return.  "  God's  will  be  done  !  "  continued  he,  after 
his  narrative,  "  and  thankful  shall  we  be  to  find  ourselves 
at  our  cottage  again,  although  twelve  miles  is  a  weary  bit 
of  road,  and  I  have  but  a  few  halfpence  left;  but  that  will 
buy  a  bit  of  bread  for  the  poor  children,  and  we  must  do  as 
•we  can.  Good  morning,  and  thank'ye  kindly,  gentlemen." 
150 


The  Belgian  Beggars. 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

Now,  there  was  no  begging  here,  certainly,  except  by 
implication.  The  effect,  however,  of  his  narrative  was  to 
extract  a  crown  out  of  our  pockets,  which  was  received  with 
a  shower  of  blessings  on  our  heads.  We  drove  off,  observ- 
ing how  difficult  it  was  to  know  how  to  select  real  objects 
of  charity,  and  flattering  ourselves  that  alms  in  this  instance 
were  worthily  bestowed.  My  readers  will  agree  with  me,  I 
have  no  doubt. 

It  so  happened  that,  about  ten  days  afterwards,  I  was 
driving  on  the  Dover  Road,  in  the  same  gig,  and  in  company 
with  the  same  gentleman,  when  we  came  to  the  bottom  of 
Shooter's  Hill.  Who  should  we  fall  in  with  but  the  very 
same  party,  the  venerable  old  man,  the  young  people,  and 
the  children,  trudging  up  the  pathway.  The  same  plan  of 
proceeding  was  observed,  for,  although  we  recognised  them 
immediately,  it  appeared  that  they  did  not  recognise  us. 
We  allowed  the  old  fellow  to  tell  his  tale,  as  before;  it 
was  just  the  same.  He  first  took  off  his  hat,  and  inquired 

the  distance  to  ;  and  then  entered  into  the  same 

narrative,  only  changing  the  place  of  abode,  and  ending 
with  his  few  halfpence  to  buy  bread  for  the  children.  I 
let  him  finish,  and  then  I  did  not,  as  before,  give  him 
a  crown,  but  I  gave  him  a  cut  across  his  face  with  the 
whip,  which  made  him  drop  his  bundle,  put  his  hands 
up  to  it ;  and  we  left  him,  stamping  with  pain  in  the 
middle  of  the  road  till  we  were  out  of  sight.  A  young 
rogue  I  can  easily  pardon,  but  an  old  one,  on  the  verge 
of  the  grave,  is  a  proof  of  hardened  villainy  which  admits 
of  no  extenuation.  After  giving  him  this  cut  direct,  we 
never  met  again. 

To  return  to  St.  Frond.  In  the  last  church  we  visited 
we  had  a  scene.  A  woman  was  in  the  confessional  ;  the 
priest,  with  a  white  handkerchief  up  to  conceal  his  face, 
and  prevent  what  he  said  being  overheard,  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  children,  who  demanded  an  explanation. 
Children  ask  so  many  questions.  "  Do  you  think  she  has 
been  very  wicked  ?  Will  he  forgive  her?"  Before  I  could 
offer  my  opinion  upon  this  important  subject,  the  woman 
gave  a  loud  scream,  and  fell  back  from  the  confessional  in 
a  fit.  The  priest  rose,  the  handkerchief  no  longer  concealed 
his  face.,  and  he  appeared  to  be  burning  with  indignation. 
151 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

She  was  carried  out  of  the  church,  and  the  priest  hastened 
up  the  aisle  to  the  vestry.  What  had  she  done?  At  all 
events,  something  for  which  it  appeared  there  was  no 
absolution. 

Aix-la-Chapelle — alas  !  What  did  we  care  for  the  tomb  of 
Charles  the  Great,  and  his  extensive  dominions,  his  splendour 
and  power  ?  We  had  lost  something  to  us  of  much  more 
importance — a  carpet-bag ;  not  that  the  carpet-bag  was  of 
much  value,  for  it  was  an  old  one,  nor  the  articles  which 
it  contained,  for  they  were  neither  new  nor  of  much  worth ; 
but  we  lost  in  that  carpet-bag  an  invaluable  quantity  of 
comfort,  for  it  contained  a  variety  of  little  absolute  neces- 
saries, the  loss  of  which  we  could  not  replace  until  our 
arrival  at  Cologne,  to  which  town  all  our  trunks  had  been 
despatched.  The  children  could  not  be  brushed,  for  the 
brushes  were  in  the  carpet-bag ;  they  could  not  be  combed, 
for  the  combs  were  in  the  carpet-bag ;  they  were  put 
to  bed  without  night-caps,  for  the  night-caps  were  in 
the  carpet-bag ;  they  were  put  to  bed  in  their  little 
chemises,  reaching  down  to  the  fifth  rib  or  thereabouts, 
for  their  night-clothes  were  in  the  carpet-bag :  not  only 
the  children,  but  every  one  else  suffered  by  this  carpet- 
bag being  absent  without  leave.  My  boots  burst,  and  my 
others  were  in  the  carpet-bag ;  my  snuff-box  was  empty, 
and  the  canister  was  in  the  carpet-bag ;  and  the  servants 
grumbled,  for  they  had  smuggled  some  of  their  things  into 
the  carpet-bag. 

It  would  appear  that  everything  had  been  crammed  into 
this  unfortunate  receptacle.  Had  we  lost  a  jewel-case,  or  a 
purse  full  of  money,  it  would  have  been  a  trifle  compared  to 
the  misery  occasioned  by  this  jumble  up  of  everyday  con- 
veniences of  little  value,  showing  how  much  more  comfort 
depends  upon  the  necessaries  than  the  luxuries  of  life.  I 
may  add,  now  that  I  read  what  I  have  written,  that  this 
carpet-bag  increased  in  dimensions  to  a  most  extraordinary 
compass  for  several  weeks  afterwards.  Everything  that  was 
missing  was  declared  by  the  servants  to  have  been  in  the 
carpet-bag,  which,  like  the  scapegoat  of  the  Jews,  wandered 
in  the  wilderness,  bearing  with  it  all  the  sins  of  all  the  nurses 
and  every  other  domestic  of  the  family. 

On  our  road,  the  landlord  of  an  inn  put  the  following 
152 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

printed  document  into  my  hands,  which  I  make  public 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  sportsmen  without  being 
landholders : — 

"  Comfortable  Inn. — The  proprietor  of  the  Red  House,  at 
Burghiem,  on  the  road  from  Aix-la-Chapelle  to  Cologne, 
pleasantly  situated  in  the  middle  of  the  town,  opposite  the 
Post-Office  and  Post- House,  has  the  honour  of  recommend- 
ing himself  to  travellers.  The  Galignani's  Messenger  and 
other  newspapers  are  taken  in.  The  English,  German, 
and  French  languages  spoken.  Having  excellent  preserves 
of  game  in  the  neighbourhood,  he  is  happy  to  inform 
travellers  that  he  can  provide  them  with  good  sports  in 
wild  boar,  deer,  and  hare  hunting,  and  wild  duck  and 
partridge  shooting.  Horses  and  carriages  of  all  descriptions 
supplied  for  excursions  in  the  neighbourhood. 

"  A.  J.  HONS." 

Prussia. — I  fear  that  our  political  economists  are  running 
after  a  shadow,  and  that  their  reciprocity  system  will  never 
be  listened  to.  It  is  remarkable,  that  after  subsidising 
this  and  other  powers  to  break  up  the  continental  system 
established  by  Napoleon  for  the  expulsion  of  English  manu- 
factures and  the  consequent  ruin  of  England,  now  that 
the  world  is  at  peace,  these  very  powers  who,  by  our 
exertions  and  our  money,  have  been  liberated  from  their 
thraldom,  have  themselves  established  the  very  system  of 
exclusion  which  we  were  so  anxious  to  prevent.  A  little 
reflection  will  prove  that  they  are  right.  The  Government 
of  a  country  ought  never,  if  possible,  to  allow  that  country 
to  be  dependent  upon  any  other  for  such  resources  as  it 
can  obtain  by  its  own  industry.  We  ourselves  acted  upon 
this  principle  when  we  established  the  silk  manufactories 
in  Spitalfields ;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  every  Government  to 
do  the  same. 

The  indigenous  productions  of  the  soil  may  fairly  be  ad- 
mitted on  a  system  of  reciprocity  and  exchange,  but  not 
articles  of  manufacture  of  which  the  raw  material  is  to  be 
obtained  by  all.  For  instance,  the  lead  and  iron  and  tin  of 
Great  Britain,  the  wines  of  other  countries,  are  all  articles 
to  be  exchanged  or  paid  for  by  those  who  have  not  mines 
153 


OLLA   PODBIDA 

of  those  metals,  or  do  not  possess  vineyards.  Further  than 
this  reciprocity  cannot  go  without  being  injurious  to  one,  if 
not  to  both  parties. 

Three  of  the  carriage  wheels  defective  !  Add  this  to  the 
carpet-bag,  and  people  will  agree  in  the  trite  observation 
that  misfortunes  never  come  singly.  This  is  not  true  ;  they 
do  come  singly  very  often,  and  when  they  do,  they  are 
more  annoying  than  if  they  come  in  heaps.  You  growl  at 
a  single  mishap,  but  if  you  find  that  fortune  is  down  upon 
you  and  attempts  to  overload  you,  you  rise  up  against  her 
with  indignation,  snap  your  fingers,  and  laugh  at  her.  The 
last  mishap  brought  consolation  for  all  the  others ;  if  we 
had  not  so  fortunately  found  out  the  defects  in  the  wheels, 
we  might  have  broken  our  necks  the  next  day,  especially 
as  some  amateur  took  a  fancy  and  helped  himself  to  our 
sabot.  1  only  wish  he  may  be  shod  with  it  for  the  remainder 
of  his  days. 

It  is  cui'ious  how  the  ignorant  and  simple  always  raise  or 
depreciate  others,  whatever  their  rank  may  be,  to  their  own 
levels,  when  they  talk  of  them.  I  listened  to  one  little  girl 
telling  a  story  to  another,  in  which  kings,  queens,  and  prin- 
cesses were  the  actors.  "'And  so,'  said  the  queen  to  the 
princess,  '  what  a  very  pretty  doll  that  is  of  yours  ! '  '  Yes, 
your  majesty ;  papa  bought  it  for  me  at  the  bazaar,  and  gave 
5s.  6d.  for  it/  "  &c.  This  reminded  me  of  the  sailors  telling 
stories  on  board  of  a  man-of-war,  who  put  very  different 
language  into  the  mouth  of  royalty.  "'Well/  says  the 
king,  'blow  me  tight  if  I'll  stand  this.  You  must  buckle 
to  as  fast  as  you  please,  Mrs.  Queen.'  '  I'll  see  you  hanged 
first,  and  your  head  shaved  too/  answered  her  majesty  in 
a  rage,"  &c.  &c.  What  queens  may  say  in  a  rage  it  is 
impossible  to  assert ;  but  to  the  seamen  this  language  ap- 
peared to  be  perfectly  regal  and  quite  correct. 

Some  people  form  odd  notions  of  gentility.  A  cabman 
took  up  a  well-dressed  female,  who  made  use  of  expressions 
which  rather  startled  him,  and  he  observed  to  a  friend  of 
his,  a  hackney-coachman,  that  he  had  no  idea  that  the 
higher  classes  used  such  language.  "  Pooh  !  pooh  ! "  replied 
the  coachman,  "  she  warn't  a  lady."  "  I  beg  your  pardon/' 
replied  the  cabman,  "  a  real  lady,  hat  and  feathers  !  " 

Cologne.— This  is  a  regular  Golgotha— the  skulls  of  the 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

Magi,  par  excellence,  and  then  the  skulls  of  St.  Ursula  and 
her  11  ,,000  virgins.  I  wonder  where  she  collected  so  many! 
St.  Ursula  brought  a  great  force  into  the  field,  at  all  events, 
and,  I  presume,  commands  the  right  wing  of  the  whole 
army  of  martyrs.  I  went  into  the  golden  chamber,  where 
there  are  some  really  pretty  things.  The  old  fellow  handed 
us  the  articles  one  after  another,  but  I  observed  that  there 
were  many  things  which  I  had  seen  when  here  before  which 
were  not  presented  to  view,  so  I  looked  into  the  cabinet 
and  found  them.  They  were  crystal  vases,  mounted  with 
gold  and  precious  stones.  One  had  the  thigh-bone  of  St. 
Sebastian ;  another,  part  of  the  ulna  of  St.  Lawrence  ;  and 
a  third  a  bit  of  the  petticoat  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  I  handed 
them  out  to  the  ladies,  and  asked  him  why  he  did  not  show 
us  those  as  he  used  to  do  before.  The  old  man  smiled  and 
turned  the  corners  of  his  mouth  down,  as  if  to  say,  "  It's 
all  humbug ! "  Relics  are  certainly  at  a  discount,  even 
among  the  Catholics. 

I  question  whether  the  Bridge  of  Boats  at  Cologne  don't 
pay  better  than  any  other  in  the  whole  world,  although  by 
110  means  the  handsomest ;  the  stream  of  passengers  on  it 
all  day  is  as  strong  and  as  wide  as  the  Rhine  itself.  As 
for  Cologne,  the  best  thing  that  could  happen  to  it  is  to 
be  burnt  down.  Narrow  streets,  badly  ventilated,  badly 
drained  ;  your  nose  is  visited  with  a  thousand  varieties  of 
smell  as  you  pass  along;  and  the  eau-de-cologne  in  the 
gutters  is  very  different  in  savour  from  that  which  you 
buy  in  the  bottles. 

We  had  a  pleasant  passage  from  Cologne  to  Coblentz, 
and  from  thence  to  Mayence,  because  we  had  pleasant 
company.  It  is  singular,  but  it  is  a  fact,  that  you  go  on 
board  a  steamboat  to  avoid  fatigue,  and  each  night  you 
are  more  tired  than  if  you  had  travelled  by  land.  You 
go  to  avoid  dust  and  heat;  the  first  is  exchanged  for  blacks 
out  of  the  funnel,  and  you  are  more  dirty  than  if  you  had 
travelled  twice  the  distance ;  and  the  heat  is  about  the 
same ;  in  these  points  you  certainly  gain  nothing.  The 
expense  of  these  Rhine  steamboats  is  very  great.  By  a 
calculation  I  made — to  travel  by  post,  five  persons  in  a 
carriage,  from  Cologne  to  Strasbourg — you  will  expend  two 
hundred  and  odd  francs  less  than  by  the  steam  conveyance. 
155 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

In  time  you  certainly  lose  by  steam,  as  you  are  four  days 
and  a  half  going  to  Strasbourg,  and  by  land  carriage  it  is 
half  the  distance,  being  only  forty-five  posts. 

Neither  do  you  save  trouble  ;  for  the  steamboats  being 
changed  every  evening,  you  have  to  take  your  luggage  on 
shore,  shift  it  from  one  to  the  other,  and  at  the  very  time 
that  you  are  least  inclined  to  do  anything,  independent  of  an 
enormous  expense,  which  you  ought  not  to  pay,  but  cannot 
well  resist. 

Now,  as  you  really  gain  nothing  in  the  above  points,  it 
is  at  least  to  be  supposed  that  you  gain  in  the  picturesque ; 
but  this  is  not  the  case ;  and  I  have  no  hesitation  iii 
asserting  that  those  who  go  up  the  Rhine  are  generally 
disappointed,  although  they  do  not  like  to  say  so.  They 
expect  too  much.  The  vivid  descriptions,  the  steel  engrav- 
ings, have  raised  their  anticipations  too  high ;  and  they 
find  that  the  reality  is  not  equal  to  the  efforts  of  the  pen 
and  pencil.  Several  of  the  passengers  acknowledged  to 
me  that  they  were  disappointed;  and  I  must  confess  that 
I  hardly  knew  the  Rhine  again.  When  I  travelled  up  the 
Rhine  by  land  I  thought  it  beautiful ;  but  in  a  steamboat 
it  was  tame. 

This  was  observed  by  others  besides  myself,  who  had 
ascended  both  by  steam  and  by  the  road  running  close  to 
the  banks  ;  and  the  reason  was  simple.  When  you  travel 
by  land  you  have  the  whole  breadth  of  the  Rhine  as  a  fore- 
ground to  the  scenery  of  the  opposite  bank,  and  this  you 
lose  by  water ;  and  the  bank  you  travel  on  is  much  more 
grand,  from  its  towering  above  you,  and  also  from  the 
sharp  angles  and  turns  which  so  suddenly  change  the 
scenery.  Abruptness  greatly  assists  the  picturesque :  the 
Rhine  loses  half  its  beauty  viewed  from  the  steamboat. 
I  have  ascended  it  in  both  ways,  and  I  should  recommend 
all  travellers  to  go  up  by  land.  The  inconveniences  in  a 
steamboat  are  many.  You  arrive  late  and  find  the  hotel 
crowded,  and  you  are  forced  to  rise  very  early  (at  Mayence 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning),  which,  with  a  family, 
is  no  trifle.  The  only  part  of  the  Rhine  worth  seeing 
is  from  Cologne  to  Mayence ;  below  Cologne  and  above 
Mayence  it  is  without  interest ;  and  although  between  these 
two  places  the  steamboats  are  well  served,  above  Mayence 
156 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

everything   is   very   uncomfortable,   and    you   are   liable   to 
every  species  of  exaction. 

If  I  were  to  plan  a  tour  up  the  Rhine  for  any  friends,  I 
should  advise  them  not  to  go  by  the  Rotterdam  steamer; 
it  is  a  long  voyage  and  without  interest,  and  with  many  in- 
conveniences ;  but  start  in  the  steamer  to  Antwerp,  go  up 
to  Brussels  by  the  railroad  ;  from  thence  you  will  start  for 
Cologne  by  the  route  of  Namur  and  Liege,  through  Waterloo; 
and  I  rather  expect  that  many  will  prefer  the  banks  of  the 
Meuse  to  the  Rhine.  I  know  nothing  more  beautiful  than 
the  road  from  Namur  as  far  as  Chaude  Fontaine,  although, 
compared  to  the  Rhine,  it  is  on  a  miniature  scale.  From 
Liege  to  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  from  thence  to  Cologne.  Go 
up  the  Rhine  by  land  as  far  as  Mayence,  and  then  you  may 
do  as  you  please.  When  you  are  coming  back,  descend  by 
the  steamboats;  for  then  you  go  with  the  stream  and  with 
great  rapidity,  and  arrive  in  good  time  at  the  towns  where 
they  stop.  You  will  then  have  seen  the  Rhine  by  land  and 
by  water. 

At  present  the  bubble  is  at  its  height ;  but  it  will  burst 
by-and-by.  The  English  are  lining  the  banks  of  the  Rhine 
with  gold,  and  receive  insult  and  abuse  in  exchange.  I 
have  been  much  amused  with  a  young  countryman  who  has 
come  up  in  the  steamer  with  me.  Not  able  to  speak  a 
word  of  French  or  German,  he  is  pillaged  every  hour  of 
the  day ;  but  if  he  could  speak,  he  has  no  idea  of  the  value 
of  his  money.  He  pulls  out  his  purse,  and  the  waiters  help 
themselves — very  plentifully,  I  may  safely  add.  What  he 
has  come  for  it  is  difficult  to  say :  not  for  the  picturesque, 
for  he  slept  the  whole  time  between  Cologne  and  Mayence 
— that  is,  all  the  time  that  was  not  occupied  by  eating  and 
drinking.  His  only  object  appears  to  be  to  try  the  Rhenish 
wines.  He  has  tried  all  upon  the  Wein  Prescn.  He  called 
for  a  bottle  of  the  best ;  they  gave  him  one  not  on  the 
carte,  and  charged  him  exactly  one  pound  sterling  for  the 
bottle.  He  is  a  generous  fellow ;  he  sits  at  the  table 
with  his  bottle  before  him,  and  invites  every  man  to  par- 
take of  it.  And  he  found  plenty  on  board  who  were  willing 
to  oblige  him. 

"  Capital  wine,  an't  it  ?  "  said  he  to  a  Frenchman  who  drank 
his  wine,  but  did  not  understand  a  word  of  English. 
157 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

"  A  votre  sante,  Monsieur/'  replied  the  Frenchman, 
"  I  say,  wliat  wine  do  you  call  it  ?  " 
"C'est  exquis,  Monsieur,"  replied  the  Frenchman. 
"Exkey,  is  it?     You  waiter,  bring  us  another  bottle  of 
exkcy." 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

1  O  continue. — Should  travellers  think  it  advisable  to  pro- 
ceed upon  the  Rhine  so  far  as  Mayence,  let  them  be  careful 
how  they  venture  to  proceed  farther  I  did  so,  out  of  curio- 
sity to  know  what  the  features  of  the  Rhine  were,  after  it 
had  lost  its  character  for  magnificence ;  and  I  will  now 
detail  my  progress.  At  Mayence  you  are  shifted  into  a 
smaller  steamer,  with  less  power,  upon  the  principle  that 
there  being  but  a  few  passengers,  their  comforts  do  not 
require  so  much  attention  ;  for,  as  the  Rhine  becomes  more 
rapid  as  it  narrows,  upon  any  other  principle  the  power  of 
the  engine  should  have  been  greater.  I  must  caution  the 
reader  not  to  believe  what  is  told  him  by  the  steam-packet 
company. 

Barbers  were  once  considered  liars,  par  excellence,  but  I  am 
inclined  to  give  the  preference  to  these  new  associations. 
The  features  of  the  Rhine  change  immediately  that  you 
leave  Mayence ;  the  banks  are  low,  and  the  river  is  studded 
with  numerous  islands,  all  of  which,  as  well  as  the  greatest 
proportion  of  the  banks,  are  covered  with  osiers.  Still, 
there  is  a  great  beauty  in  the  Rhine  even  there  ;  the  waving 
of  the  osiers  to  the  strong  breeze,  the  rapidity  of  the  current, 
the  windings  of  the  river,  the  picturesque  spires  of  the 
village  churches,  or  the  change  of  scenery  when  the  river 
pours  through  forests,  lining  each  bank  as  the  vessel  slowly 
claws  against  the  rapid  stream,  are  by  no  means  uninterest- 
ing. Of  course,  we  did  not  arrive  at  Leopoldshaffen  at  the 
hour  stated  by  the  people  at  the  office,  but  we  did  arrive 
late  at  night,  and  took  up  our  quarters  at  a  small  auberge  in 
the  above  village,  which  is  not  marked  down  in  the  maps, 
but  which  has  post-horses  and  diligences  to  convey  passengers 
to  Carlsruhe.  Notwithstanding  the  assertion  at  the  packet- 
office  that  we  were  to  be  in  one  day  to  Leopoldshaffen,  in 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

one  day  more  to  Strasbourg,  we  found  there  was  no  steamer 
until  the  day  after  the  morrow,  and  that  we  must  wait  one 
day  more  if  we  did  not  choose  to  go  to  Carlsruhe.  The 
females,  being  fatigued,  preferred  remaining  where  they 
were.  We  sauntered  about  and  amused  ourselves  quietly. 
The  next  day  we  found  the  steamer  had  arrived,  and  that 
instead  of  her  ascending  in  one  day  to  Strasbourg,  it  would 
take  a  day  and  a  half,  and  that  we  must  pass  the  night 
aboard  without  the  least  accommodation — not  very  pleasant, 
with  a  carriageful  of  young  children.  We  embarked  on 
board  the  steamer,  which  was  a  miserably  small  vessel,  with 
an  engine  of  bad  construction  and  very  small  power  ;  and 
with  this  we  were  to  oppose  the  most  rapid  part  of  the 
Rhine.  In  every  other  point  the  vessel  was  equally  ill- 
found  :  they  had  a  very  small  stock  of  provisions,  bad  wine, 
and  none  of  those  comforts  provided  for  the  passengers  in  the 
other  vessels.  To  crown  all,  another  family  witli  children 
(of  whom  more  hereafter)  had  taken  their  passage.  The 
steward  told  us  that,  never  expecting  so  many  people  on 
board  going  up  to  Strasbourg,  he  was  totally  unprepared  ! 
and  so  it  eventually  appeared. 

We  started,  and  soon  found  out  that  the  power  of  the 
engines  was  quite  disproportionate  to  the  object  in  view. 
The  Rhine  now  assumed  a  more  desolate  character.  For 
miles  and  miles  not  a  village  or  even  a  solitary  town  to  be 
seen ;  the  Hartz  Mountains  forming  a  blue,  opaque  mass  in 
the  distance ;  the  stream  rapidly  passing  through  narrow  and 
deep  channels,  leaving  one  half  of  the  bed  of  the  river  dry. 
At  times  we  passed  very  dangerous  straits,  where  the  waters 
boiled  and  eddied  over  reefs  of  rocks,  and  were  often  obliged 
to  force  our  way  by  keeping  within  a  foot  of  steep  and 
muddy  banks,  where  trees  torn  up,  and  hanging  by  the 
roots,  proved  how  violent  must  be  the  current  when  the 
river  is  increased  by  the  melting  of  the  mountain  snow. 

Our  progress  was,  as  it  may  be  imagined,  most  tedious  ;  at 
no  time  did  we  advance  above  a  mile  and  a  half  per  hour  ; 
sometimes  we  did  not  gain  a  hundred  yards  in  the  same 
time,  and  occasionally  we  were  swept  back  by  the  current, 
and  had  to  lose  still  more  ground,  while  they  increased  the 
power  of  the  engine  at  the  risk  of  explosion.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  when  the  day  closed  the  conductor  gave 
159 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

his  opinion  that,  instead  of  being  at  Strasbourg  by  eleven  or 
twelve  o'clock  the  next  clay,  we  should  not  arrive  till  four 
or  five  o'clock :  we  anchored  within  a  yard  of  the  bank,  and 
prepared  to  pass  the  night  how  we  could. 

Our  party  consisted  of  seven,  with  two  nurses.  The  other 
party  consisted  of  four  grown-up  females,  one  male,  four 
boys,  an  East  African  negro,  and  a  cotvskin ;  the  latter  was 
a  very  important  personage,  and  made  a  great  noise  during 
the  passage.  The  gentleman  was  apparently  one  of  those 
who  denominate  themselves  eclectic :  he  paid  very  little 
attention  to  what  was  going  on  ;  a  peaceable  sort  of  man, 
whose  very  physiognomy  said  "  anything  for  a  quiet  life  : "  one 
of  the  ladies  was  his  wife,  and  two  others,  virgins  of  some 
standing,  apparently  his  sisters ;  the  other  lady,  a  bilious- 
looking  sort  of  personage,  and  happy  in  being  the  mother 
of  four  very  fine  boys,  as  great  pickles  as  ever  lived  ;  these 
she  kept  in  order  with  the  assistance  of  the  negro  and  the 
cowskin,  the  use  of  the  latter  occasioning  such  evident  marks 
of  astonishment  and  horror  to  our  little  ones,  as  not  to  be  at 
all  satisfactory  to  the  lady  in  question,  who  appeared  not 
averse,  had  she  dared,  to  have  given  them  a  taste  of  it.  The 
youngest  and  the  youngest  but  one  of  the  boys  were  the 
two  sufferers  ;  the  youngest  had  a  regular  dozen  administered 
every  half-hour.  The  two  eldest  were  more  particularly 
under  the  care  of  the  negro,  who  used  his  fists,  I  presume, 
because  they  wore  corduroys,  and,  as  Hood  says,  did  not 
care  for  "  cut  behind."  We  had  not  been  in  the  vessel  two 
minutes  before  there  was  a  breeze.  I  heard  the  negro  ex- 
postulating as  follows  : — "  You  very  foolish  boy,  what  you 
mean  ?  who  ever  heard  of  putting  new  cloth  cap  into  water 
to  catch  fish  ?"  This  was  the  first  offence.  I  must  say  that 
the  coercion  used  did  not  appear  to  originate  from  any  feeling 
of  regard  for  the  children,  for  they  were  allowed  to  climb, 
and  push,  and  run  over  the  skylights,  and  over  the  engine, 
and  I  every  moment  expected  that  some  of  them  would  be 
provided  for  either  by  the  cog-wheels  or  the  river  Rhine. 

It  was  evident  at  once,  not  only  from  the  above  accessories, 
but  from  the  Chinese  trunks  which  contained  their  luggage, 
that  they  were  an  Indian  importation,  and  their  behaviour 
subsequently  proved  it,  beyond  all  doubt,  even  if  they  had 
not  made  it  known — not  by  talking  to  us,  but  by  talking  at 


DIARY   ON   THE  CONTINENT 

us,  for  they  evidently  did  not  consider  that  we  were  suffi- 
ciently respectable  to  be  admitted  into  their  society,  even  in 
the  short  intercourse  of  fellow-travellers. 

I  cannot  here  help  making  an  observation  relative  to  most 
of  the  people  who  come  from  India.  They  are  always  dis- 
satisfied, and  would  gladly  return.  The  reason  is  very  ob- 
vious •  they  at  once  lose  their  rank  and  consequence,  and  sink 
down  to  the  level  to  which  they  are  entitled  in  English 
society.  In  India  the  rank  of  the  servants  of  the  Company 
takes  precedence  ;  but  whatever  their  rank  or  emolument 
may  be  in  India,  they  are  still  but  servants  of  a  company 
of  merchants,  and  such  rank  is  not,  of  course,  allowed  in 
England.  Accustomed  to  unlimited  sway  and  control  over 
a  host  of  fawning  slaves,  and  to  that  attention  as  females 
— which,  where  females  are  not  very  plentiful,  is  most  sedu- 
lously paid — accustomed  to  patronise  the  new-comers,  who 
of  course  feel  grateful  for  such  well-timed  civilitv  and 
hospitality — in  short,  accustomed  to  rank,  splendour,  wealth, 
and  power — it  is  not  surprising  that,  upon  their  return  to 
England,  when  they  find  themselves  shorn  of  all  these,  and 
that  their  station  in  society  is  far  more  removed  from  the 
apex,  they  become  sullen  and  dissatisfied.  Of  course,  there 
are  many  who  have  been  resident  in  India,  whose  family  and 
connections  ensure  them  every  advantage  upon  their  return 
to  their  native  country ;  but  it  must  be  recollected  that  the 
greater  portion  of  those  who  return  consists  of  those  who 
were  of  low  origin,  and  who  have  obtained  their  appoint- 
ments in  reward  for  the  exertions  of  their  parents  in  behalf 
of  their  patrons  in  Parliamentary  returns,  &c.,  and  of  young 
females  who  have  (with  their  face  as  their  fortune)  been 
shipped  off  to  India  upon  a  matrimonial  speculation.  Now, 
however  high  in  rank  they  may  have,  in  the  course  of 
many  years'  service,  arrived  to  in  India,  when  they  return  they 
are  nobodies ;  and  unless  they  bring  with  them  such  wealth 
as  to  warrant  their  being  designated  as  nabobs,  their  chance 
of  admittance  into  the  best  society  is  very  small  indeed. 

I  have  said  that  they  talked  at  us,  and  not  to  us.  The 
gentleman  was  civil,  and  would  have  conversed,  but  he 
was  immediately  interrupted  and  sent  off  on  a  message ; 
and,  for  a  quiet  life,  he  gave  it  up.  The  system  of  talking 
at  people  always  reminds  me  of  the  play  of  the  "  Critic," 
161  i. 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

in  which  it  is  asked,  "Why,  if  he  knows  all  this,  is  it 
necessary  to  tell  him  again  ?  "  Simply  because  the  audience 
do  not;  so,  the  party  in  question  were  the  actors,  and  we 
were  the  audience  to  be  informed.  The  conversation  be- 
tween the  adults  ran  as  follows :  "  You  recollect  how  polite 

Lord  C was  to  us  at  ?"     "To  be  sure  I  do." 

"  Lady  D told  me  so  and  so."      "  Yes,  I  recollect  it 

very  well."— "What  a  nice  man  the  Honourable  Mr.  E 

is!'       "Yes,  that  he  is." — "How  very  intimate  we  were 

at    with   Lady   G."     "That  we  were."— And  so   on, 

during  the  whole  of  the  day,  much  to  our  edification.  How 
contemptible,  how  paltry  is  such  vanity  !  But  with  their 
indulgence  of  it  for  our  amusement,  the  cowskin,  and  a 
scanty  dinner,  we  got  through  the  first  day,  during  which 
two  or  three  occasional  patronising  questions  or  remarks 
were  thrown  at  our  heads,  and  then  they  reverted  to  their 
own  assumed  exclusiveness.  The  night,  as  may  be  supposed, 
was  anything  but  comfortable  to  those  in  the  cabin ;  but  I 
shall  not  dwell  upon  what,  if  fairly  narrated,  would  be  a  very 
pretty  sketch  of  human  nature. 

We  were  to  arrive  the  next  day  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  but  we  toiled  on ;  and  the  sun  at  last  went  down, 
and  we  found  ourselves  with  the  steeple  of  Strasbourg  a 
long  way  off  We  again  anchored,  and  had  to  pass  another 
night  in  this  miserable  vessel  and  delightful  company.  The 
detention,  of  course,  made  our  fellow-passengers  more  cross  ; 
and  could  I  have  obtained  possession  of  the  cowskin,  I 
would  certainly  have  thrown  it  overboard.  The  captain  sent 
a  man  on  shore  to  procure  us  something  to  eat,  for  the 
steward  declared  himself  bankrupt  The  next  forenoon  we 
arrived  at  the  bridge  of  boats  between  Kehl  and  Strasbourg ; 
and  thus  was  finished  our  tedious  and  unpleasant  voyage, 
of  which  I  have  given  a  description  as  a  warning  to  *all 
future  travellers.  Our  fellow-passengers  did  once  con- 
descend to  address  and  inform  us  that  they  had  left  England 
(a  party  of  ten  people)  only  to  pay  a  visit  to  some  friends 
m  Switzerland— an  expensive  sort  of  trip,  and  which  did 
not  appear  at  all  consistent  with  the  fact  that  they  were 
travelling  without  a  carriage  or  female  servants.  Be  it  as 
it  might,  we  separated  without  so  much  as  a  salutation  or 
good-bye  being  exchanged. 

162 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

Much  of  the  picturesque  on  the  Rhine  is  destroyed  by  the 
vineyards,  which  are,  in  reality,  the  most  unpoetical  tilings 
in  landscape  scenery,  being  ranged  up  the  sides  of  the 
mountains  in  little  battalions  like  infantry.  It  is  remarkable 
in  how  shallow  and  how  very  poor  a  soil  the  vine  will  grow. 
At  St.  Michael's  they  dig  square  holes  in  the  volcanic  rocks, 
and  the  vines  find  sustenance.  At  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
the  Constantia  vineyards  are  planted  upon  little  more  than 
sand.  I  dug  down  some  depth,  and  could  find  nothing  else. 
The  finest  grapes  grown  in  Burgundy  are  upon  a  stratum  of 
soil  little  more  than  a  foot  deep,  over  schistus  slate  quarries, 
and  the  soil  itself  is  composed  chiefly  of  the  debris  of  this 
soft  rock. 

We  know  that  the  vegetable  creation  has  a  sort  of  instinct, 
as  well  as  the  animal ;  and  it  appears  to  me  that  there  are 
different  degrees  of  instinct  in  that  portion  of  nature  as 
well  as  in  the  other.  A  vine,  for  instance,  I  take  to  be  a 
very  clever  plant,  and  both  apple  and  pear-trees  to  be 
great  fools.  The  vine  will  always  seek  its  own  nourish- 
ment, hunting  with  its  roots  through  the  soil  for  the  aliment 
it  requires ;  and  if  it  cannot  find  it  where  it  is  planted,  it 
will  seek,  in  every  direction  and  to  a  great  distance,  to 
obtain  it.  It  is  asserted  that  the  famous  vine  at  Hampton 
Court  has  passed  its  roots  under  the  bed  of  the  river,  and 
obtains  aliment  from  the  soil  on  the  other  side ;  but  an 
apple  or  pear-tree  will  take  no  such  trouble— it  will  not 
even  avoid  what  is  noxious.  Plant  one  of  these  trees  in  the 
mould  three  or  four  feet  above  the  marl  or  clay  ;  so  long  as 
the  roots  remain  in  the  mould  the  tree  will  flourish,  but  so 
soon  as  the  tap  root  pierces  down  to  the  marl  or  clay  below 
the  mould  the  tree  will  canker  and  die.  To  prevent  this, 
it  is  the  custom  to  dig  first  down  to  the  marl  and  put  a  layer 
of  tiles  upon  it,  which  turn  the  roots  of  the  trees  from  a 
perpendicular  to  a  horizontal  direction,  and  then  they  do 
well ;  but  leave  the  tree  without  assistance,  and  the  fool 
will  commit  suicide,  blindly  rushing  to  its  own  destruction ; 
while  the  vine  will  not  only  avoid  it,  but  use  every  exertion 
to  procure  what  is  necessary  for  its  continuing  in  health  and 
vigour.  The  vine  is,  therefore,  certainly  the  more  intel- 
lectual plant  of  the  two. 

163 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

CHAPTER  XXXTV 

_  STRASBOUBG. 

J.  HERE  certainly  is  an  impulse  implanted  in  our  natures  to 
love  something ;  our  affections  were  never  intended  to  lie  in 
abeyance,  and  if  they  cannot  be  placed  upon  the  other  sex 
or  our  own  children,  they  still  seek  something  as  an  object. 
This  accounts  for  old  bachelors  being  fond  of  their  nephews 
and  nieces,  for  blood  relationship  has  nothing  to  do  with  it ; 
and  for  old  ladies,  who  have  not  entered  into  wedlock,  be- 
coming so  attached  to  dogs,  cats,  and  parrots.  Sometimes, 
indeed,  the  affections  take  much  wilder  flights  in  the  pursuit 
of  an  object,  and  exhibit  strange  idiosyncrasies ;  but  still  it 
proves  by  nature  we  are  compelled  to  love  something.  I  have 
been  reflecting  how  far  this  principle  may  not  be  supposed  to 
pervade  through  the  universe,  and  whether  we  cannot  trace 
it  in  the  inferiors  of  the  animal  creation  :  whether  we  cannot 
trace  a  small  remnant  of  Paradise  in  the  beasts  who  enjoyed 
it  with  man,  as  well  as  in  man  himself.  It  is  well  known 
that  animals  will  take  very  strong  and  very  strange  attach- 
ments towards  other  animals.  It  is,  perhaps,  more  apparent 
in  domestic  animals,  but  is  not  that  because  they  are  more 
brought  together  and  more  under  our  immediate  eye  ?  In 
some  instances,  as  in  the  case  when  maternal  feelings  are 
roused,  the  strongest  antipathies  and  habit  will  be  controlled. 
A  cat  losing  her  kittens  has  been  known  to  suckle  a  brood  of 
young  rats,  but  in  this  case  I  consider  instinct  to  have  been 
the  most  powerful  agent ;  wjld  beasts  confined  in  cages  show 
the  same  propensity.  The  lion  secluded  in  his  den  has  often 
been  known  to  foster  and  become  strongly  attached  to  a  dog, 
thrown  in  to  him  to  be  devoured  ;  but  there  never  was  an 
instance  of  a  lion  or  any  other  wild  beast,  which  had  a 
female  in  the  same  den  or  even  a  companion  of  its  own 
species,  preserving  the  life  of  any  other  living  creature 
thrown  in  to  him.  This  feeling  occasions  also  the  production 
of  hybrids  ;  which  in  a  wild  state  could  never  take  place. 
There  is  not,  probably,  a  more  ferocious  or  ill-tempered 
animal  than  the  bear  when  it  is  grown  up ;  it  is  subdued  by 
fear,  but  shows  no  attachment  to  its  keeper ;  yet  the  other 
day  I  fell  in  with  a  remarkable  narration  proving  the  feeling 
164 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 

I  have  referred  to  actuating  even  this  animal.  A  proof  of 
the  bad  feeling  of  a  bear  is  fully  established  by  the  fact  that, 
although  Martin.,  as  the  old  bear  is  called  in  the  Jai'din  des 
Plantes  at  Paris,  had  been  confined  hi  his  fosse  nearly 
twenty  years,  during  which  time  not  a  day  passed  that  he 
was  not  well  fed  by  the  people  who  amused  themselves  in 
the  garden,  when  a  man  fell  into  his  pit  he  immediately 
destroyed  him.  It  does,  however,  appear  that  all  bears  are 
not  so  ill-tempered  as  Monsieur  Martin.  Leopold,  Duke  of 
Lorraine,  had  a  bear  confined  by  a  long  chain,  near  the 
palisades  below  the  glacis.  Some  poor  Savoyard  boys,  who 
had  emigrated  as  they  still  do,  with  the  hopes  of  picking  up 
some  money  to  take  back  wilh  them,  had  taken  shelter  in  an 
outhouse  during  a  severe  snowstorm.  One  of  them,  who 
was  numbed  with  the  cold,  thought  that  he  would  try  if  he 
could  not  find  some  warmer  berth,  and  in  seeking  this,  as 
the  snow  fell  fast,  he  at  last  crawled,  nearly  exhausted, 
into  the  kennel  of  the  bear.  Instead  of  tearing  the  lad  to 
pieces,  the  bear  took  him  in  his  fore-paws,  and  pressed  him 
to  his  shaggy,  warm  coat  till  he  was  quite  recovered.  A 
bear  generally  receives  you  with  open  arms,  whatever  may 
be  his  ultimate  decision ;  but  in  this  instance  it  was  favour- 
able. The  poor  little  boy,  finding  himself  in  good  quarters, 
went  fast  asleep ;  the  next  morning  he  sallied  forth  to 
obtain  some  victuals  if  he  could,  but  without  success.  Cold 
and  hunger  drove  him  again  to  the  kennel  of  the  bear,  who 
not  only  was  delighted  to  see  him,  but  had  actually  laid  aside 
a  portion  of  his  supper  for  the  boy's  use.  This  amicable 
arrangement  continued  for  some  days,  and  the  bear,  at  last, 
would  not  touch  his  victuals  till  the  boy's  return.  This 
peculiar  friendship  was  at  last  discovered,  and  the  story 
narrated  to  the  Duke,  who  sent  for  the  boy,  and  took  care  of 
him,  admitting  him  into  his  own  household.  The  narrator 
observes  that  the  boy  died  a  year  or  two  after  this  unusual 
occurrence  had  taken  place.  I  have  no  doubt  but  that  many 
more  instances  might  be  brought  forward  by  others  to 
establish  my  supposition.  To  us,  all  wild  animals  of  the 
same  species  appear  to  be  much  alike  in  disposition,  because 
we  have  not  an  opportunity  of  examining  and  watching  them 
carefully;  but  I  shouJd  rather  imagine,  that  as  we  can 
perceive  such  a  manifest  difference  in  temper  between  indi- 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

vidual  horses  and  dogs  and  other  animals  who  are  domesti~ 
cated,  that  the  same  difference  must  exist  in  the  wild  species, 
and  that,  in  fact,  there  may  be  shades  of  virtue  and  vice  in 
lions,  tigers,  bears,  and  other  animals ;  and  that  there  does 
exist  in  animals  as  well  as  in  man,  more  or  less,  according  to 
their  natural  dispositions,  a  remnant  of  those  affections  which 
in  the  garden  of  our  first  parents  were  so  strongly  implanted 
as  to  induce  the  lion  to  lie  down  with  the  lamb.  "God  is 
Love,"  says  the  Scriptures ;  before  the  devil  found  his  way 
to  this  earth  all  was  love,  for  God  only  was  there.  Now 
man  struggles  between  the  two  principles  of  good  and  evil. 
When  his  nature  was  changed,  so  was  that  of  animals ;  but 
the  principle  not  being  extinct  in  man,  why  should  not  a 
portion  still  remain  in  the  rest  of  the  creation,  who,  with 
him,  were  permitted  to  inhabit  the  garden  of  Eden,  and 
whose  savage  natures  were  not  roused  until,  with  man,  they 
were  driven  from  that  abode  of  peace  ? 

The  most  affectionate  animal  that  I  know  of  is  the  common 
brown  mongoose :  it  is  a  creature  between  the  squirrel  and 
the  monkey,  with  all  the  liveliness  but  without  any  of  the 
mischief  of  the  latter.  Unfortunately,  they  will  not  live  in 
our  country,  or  they  would  supersede  the  cat  altogether ; 
tliey  are  very  clean,  and  their  attachment  is  beyond  all 
conception  to  those  who  have  not  seen  them.  They  will 
leap  on  their  master's  shoulder,  or  get  into  his  bed,  and 
coil  their  long  bushy  tails  round  his  neck  like  a  boa,  re- 
maining there  for  hours  if  permitted.  I  recollect  one  poor 
little  fellow  who  was  in  his  basket  dying  —  much  to  the 
grief  of  his  master — who,  just  before  he  expired,  crawled 
out  of  his  straw  and  went  to  his  master's  cot,  where  he  had 
just  sufficient  strength  to  take  his  place  upon  his  bosom, 
coil  his  tail  round  his  neck,  and  then  he  died. 

Hares  and  rabbits  are  also  very  affectionate.  One  of  my 
little  girls  had  one  of  the  latter,  which  she  brought  up  fti 
the  house.  He  grew  very  large,  and  was  domesticated 
just  like  a  dog,  following  you  everywhere,  in  the  parlour 
and  up  into  the  bedroom ;  in  the  winter  lying  on  the  rug 
before  the  fire  on  his  side,  and  stretching  out  his .  four 
legs  as  unconcerned  as  possible,  even  refusing  to  go  away 
if  you  pushed  him.  As  for  the  cat,  she  durst  not  go  near 
him.  He  thrashed  her  unmercifully,  for  he  was  very 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

strong;  and  the  consequence  was  that  she  retired  to  the 
kitchen,  where  he  would  often  go  down,  and,  if  she  was 
in  his  way,  drive  her  out.  The  hare  and  rabbit,  as  Veil 
as  the  deer  tribe,  defend  themselves  by  striking  with  their 
fore-paws,  and  the  blow  which  they  can  give  is  more 
forcible  than  people  would  suppose.  One  day  when  I  was 
in  a  cover,  leaning  against  a  tree  with  my  gun  in  my 
hand,  I  presume  for  some  time  I  must  have  been  in  deep 
thought,  I  heard  a  rustling  and  then  a  squeak  on  the  other 
side  of  the  tree ;  I  looked  round  the  trunk,  and  beheld 
a  curious  combat  between  two  hares  and  a  stoat.  The 
hares  were  male  and  female,  and  had  their  leveret  between 
them,  which  latter  was  not  above  six  weeks  old.  The 
stoat — a  little  devil  with  all  its  hair,  from  the  tip  of  his 
nose  to  the  end  of  its  tail,  standing  at  end — was  at  about 
two  yards'  distance  from  them,  working  round  and  round 
to  have  an  opportunity  to  spring  upon  the  leveret,  which 
was  the  object  of  its  attack.  As  it  went  round  so  did 
the  hares  face  him,  pivoting  on  a  centre  with  the  young 
one  between  them.  At  last  the  stoat  made  a  spring  upon 
the  leveret.  .  He  was  received  by  the  hares,  who  struck 
him  with  their  fore-feet  such  blows  as  I  could  not  have 
believed  possible ;  they  actually  resounded,  and  he  was 
rolled  over  and  over  until  he  got  out  of  distance,  when 
he  shook  himself  and  renewed  his  attacks.  These  con- 
tinued about  ten  minutes,  and  every  time  he  was  beaten 
off,  but  at  every  spring  his  teeth  went  into  the  poor  little 
leveret ;  at  last  it  gave  its  last  squeak,  turned  over  on  its 
side,  and  died,  the  father  and  mother  still  holding  their 
relative  situations,  and  facing  the  stoat.  The  latter  showed 
as  much  prudence  as  courage ;  for  so  soon  as  he  perceived 
that  the  leveret  was  dead  he  also  walked  off.  The  hares 
turned  round  to  their  young  one,  smelt  at  it  apparently, 
pushed  it  with  their  noses,  and  shortly  after,  as  if  aware 
that  it  was  past  all  defence,  hopped  slowly  away ;  they 
were  hardly  out  of  sight  in  the  bushes  when  back  came 
the  stoat,  threw  the  leveret,  twice  as  big  as  himself,  over 
his  shoulders,  and  went  off  with  his  prize  at  a  hard  gallop, 
reminding  me,  in  miniature,  of  the  Bengal  tiger  carrying 
off  a  bullock.  All  the  actors  in  the  drama  having  gone  off, 
I  walked  off,  and  shortly  after  both  barrels  of  my  gun  went 
167 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

off,  so  the  whole  party  disappeared,  and  there's  an  end  of 
my  story. 

If  an  elephant  were  not  so  very  unwieldy,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  very  uncertain  in  his  temper,  he  is  the  animal  who 
has  the  most  claims  from  affection  and  intelligence  to  be 
made  a  pet  of;  but  an  elephant  in  a  drawing-room  would 
be  somewhat  incommodious ;  and  although  one  may  admit 
a  little  irritability  of  temper  in  a  lap-dog  weighing  three 
pounds,  the  anger  of  an  elephant,  although  he  expresses 
himself  very  sorry  for  it  afterwards,  is  attended  with  serious 
consequences.  There  is  something  very  peculiar  about  an 
elephant  in  his  anger  and  irritability.  It  sometimes  happens 
that,  at  a  certain  season,  a  wild  elephant  will  leave  the  herd, 
and  remain  in  the  woods  alone.  It  is  supposed,  and  I  think 
that  the  supposition  is  correct,  that  these  are  the  weaker  males 
who  have  been  driven  away  by  the  stronger,  in  fact,  they 
are  elephants  crossed  in  love  ;  and  when  in  that  unfortunate 
dilemma  they  are  very  mischievous,  and  play  as  many  fan- 
tastic tricks  as  ever  did  any  of  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table  on  similar  occasions  in  times  of  yore. 

When  I  was  at  Trincornalee,  an  elephant  in  this  situation 
had  taken  possession  of  the  road  at  some  leagues  distant, 
and,  for  reasons  best  known  to  himself,  would  not  allow 
a  soul  to  pass  it.  He  remained  perdu  in  the  jungle  till 
he  saw  somebody  coming,  and  then  he  would  burst  out 
and  attack  him.  It  is  the  custom  to  travel  in  palanquins 
from  one  part  of  the  island  to  another,  as  in  all  parts  of 
India.  If  some  officer  or  gentleman  was  obliged  to  pro- 
ceed to  Colombo  or  elsewhere,  so  soon  as  the  palanquin 
came  towards  him  out  came  the  elephant ;  the  native 
bearers,  who  knew  that  it  was  no  use  arguing  the  point, 
dropped  the  palanquin  and  fled,  and  all  that  the  occupant 
could  do  was  to  bundle  out  and  do  the  same  before  the 
elephant  came  up,  otherwise  he  had  little  chance  of  his 
life,  for  the  elephant  immediately  put  his  knees  in  the 
palanquin  and  smashed  it  to  atoms.  Having  done  this, 
he  would  toss  the  fragments  in  the  air  in  every  direction, 
at  the  same  time  carefully  unfolding  all  the  articles  con- 
tained in  the  palanquin  for  the  occupant's  use — shirts, 
trousers,  boots,  bottles,  books,  undergoing  a  most  rigid 
examination,  and  after  that  being  rendered  to  fragments, 
168 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

If  the  coolie  who  had  the  charge  of  the  bag  of  letters 
made  his  appearance,  he  was  immediately  pursued  until 
he  gave  up  the  whole  correspondence,  official  or  private. 
The  bag  was  opened,  every  letter  was  opened  one  by  one, 
and  then  torn  in  fragments  and  tossed  to  the  winds.  In 
this  way  did  he  keep  possession  of  the  road,  stopping  all 
communication  for  several  weeks,  until  it  was  his  sovereign 
will  and  pleasure  that  people  might  receive  their  letters 
and  travel  across  the  countiy  as  before.  Now,  what  an 
unaccountable  freak  was  this !  It  was  like  the  madness 
of  a  reasonable  being.  If  I  recollect  right,  it  was  when 
Captain  Owen  was  on  the  east  coast  of  Africa,  some  of  his 
party  who  landed  were  attacked  by  elephants,  who  threw 
them  down  on  the  ground,  and  instead  of  killing  them, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  and  would  have  given  them 
no  trouble,  they  drew  up  a  large  quantity  of  mud  in  their 
trunks  and  poured  it  into  their  mouths,  so  as  nearly  to 
suffocate  them,  and  then  left  them.  On  another  occasion 
they  put  their  fore-feet  on  their  limbs  so  as  to  pinch  and 
bruise  them  severely  in  every  part  of  their  bodies,  but 
avoided  their  bones  so  as  not  to  fracture  one.  Now  this  was 
evidently  two  species  of  torture  invented  by  the  elephants, 
and  these  elephants  in  a  wild  state.  There  certainly  is  some- 
thing very  incomprehensible  about  these  animals. 

The  lion  has  been  styled  the  king  of  beasts,  but  I  think 
he  is  an  usurper  allowed  to  remain  on  the  throne  by  public 
opinion  and  suffrage,  from  the  majesty  of  his  appearance. 
In  every  other  point  he  has  no  claim.  He  is  the  head 
of  the  feline  or  cat  species,  and  has  all  the  treachery, 
cruelty,  and  wanton  love  for  blood  that  all  this  class  of 
animals  have  to  excess.  The  lion,  like  the  tiger  and  the 
cat,  will  not  come  boldly  on  to  his  prey,  but  springs  from 
his  concealment.  It  is  true  that  he  will  face  his  assailants 
bravely  when  wounded,  but  so  will  the  tiger. 

In  my  opinion,  the  horse  is  the  most  noble  of  all  animals, 
and,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  most  ill-used,  at  least  in  England  ; 
for  I  do  not  recollect  a  single  instance  of  having  seen  a  horse 
ill-treated  on  the  Continent.  In  fact,  you  hardly  ever  see 
a  horse  on  the  Continent  that  is  not  in  good  working  con- 
dition ;  you  never  meet  the  miserable,  lame,  blind,  and 
worn-out  animals  that  you  do  in  England,  which  stumble 
169 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

along  with  their  loads  behind  them  till  they  stumble  into 
their  graves.  If  any  one  would  take  the  trouble  to  make 
friends  with  their  horses,  they  would  be  astonished  at  the 
intelligence  and  affection  of  this  noble  animal  ;  but  we  leave 
them  to  our  grooms,  who  prefer  to  use  force  to  kindness. 
At  the  same  time,  I  have  observed,  even  in  colts,  very 
different  dispositions .  some  are  much  more  fond  and  good- 
tempered  than  others ;  but  let  them  be  what  they  \vill  as 
colts,  they  are  soon  spoiled  by  the  cruelty  and  want  of 
judgment  of  those  who  have  charge  of  them  in  the  stable. 
The  sympathy  between  the  Arab  and  his  horse  is  well 
known :  the  horse  will  lie  down  in  the  tent,  and  the 
children  have  no  fear  of  receiving  a  kick ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  roll  upon,  and  with  him  ;  such  is  the  result  of  kindness. 
And  I  can  now  give  a  proof  of  the  effects  of  the  contrary, 
as  it  was,  in  this  instance,  what  may  be  termed  malice 
prepense  in  the  animal.  The  horses  used  in  the  West 
Indies  are  supplied  from  the  Spanish  Main ;  they  are  from 
the  Andalusian  stock  originally,  partly  Arab  and  barb. 
These  horses  are  taken  by  the  lasso  from  the  prairies,  and 
broken  in  as  follows  •  They  lead  them  down  to  the  sea 
beach,  saddle  and  bridle  them  for  the  first  time,  and  mount 
them  with  a  pair  of  spurs,  the  rowels  of  which  are  an  inch 
long.  So  soon  as  the  animal  plunges  and  attempts  to  divest 
himself  of  his  rider  he  is  forced  into  the  sea,  and  there 
he  is  worked  in  and  out  of  his  depth  till  he  is  fairly  worn 
out  and  exhausted.  This  is  repeated  once  or  twice  till 
they  are  submissive,  and  then  they  are  sent  off  as  broken-in 
horses  to  the  West  India  Islands.  A  friend  of  mine  had 
a  very  beautiful  animal,  which  he  had  purchased  from  one 
of  these  ships.  He  had  not  bought  him  more  than  a 
week  before  he  took  the  bit  in  his  mouth,  and  ran  away 
with  the  black  boy  who  was  exercising  him.  The  boy 
lost  his  seat  and  fell,  and  the  horse,  for  a  hundred  yards, 
continued  his  career ;  and  then  it  stopped,  turned  round, 
and  galloped  up  to  the  boy,  who  was  still  on  the  ground, 
and  never  ceased  kicking  him  till  the  poor  fellow's  brains 
were  scattered  in  the  road.  Now  this  was  evidently  deter- 
mination for  revenge. 


170 


DIARY   ON   THE  CONTINENT 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

STRASBOURG  is  full  of  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
war.  Being  one  of  the  keys  of  France,  it  has  a  garrison  of 
ten  thousand  men,  and  the  drums  and  bands  playing  from 
morning  to  evening,  much  to  the  delight  of  the  children, 
at  all  events.  It  is  a  well-built  town,  although  the  houses 
are  most  of  them  of  very  ancient  date,  with  three  storeys  of 
mansardes,  in  their  high-peaked  roofs.  I  am  rather  partial 
to  the  Alsatian  character ;  it  is  a  combination  of  French, 
Swiss,  and  German,  which  make  a  very  good  cross.  Not 
being  in  a  particular  hurry,  I  have  remained  here  ten  days, 
and  I  will  say  for  Strasbourg  that  it  has  many  recommenda- 
tions. It  is  lively  and  bustling ;  the  walks  outside  the 
ramparts  are  beautiful,  and  living  is  very  reasonable.  It 
has,  however,  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  unhealthy  place, 
and,  I  am  afraid,  with  truth.  It  is  singular  that  the  beautiful 
cathedral,  although  it  has  already  suffered  so  much  by  light- 
ning, has  not  yet  been  fitted  with  a  conductor.  There  was 
a  meeting  of  the  dignitaries  some  years  back ;  some  argued 
in  favour  and  some  against  it,  and  it  ended  in  neither  party 
being  persuaded,  and  nothing  being  done.  I  met  another 
Englishman  here,  to  whom  the  question  might  so  properly 
be  put,  "  What  the  deuce  are  you  doing  here  ? "  An  old 
worthy,  nearly  seventy,  who,  after  having  passed  his  fair 
allowance  of  life  very  happily  in  his  own  country,  must, 
forsooth,  come  up  the  Rhine,  without  being  able  to  speak 
a  word  of  French,  or  any  other  language  but  his  own.  He 
very  truly  told  me  that  he  had  just  begun  to  see  the 
world  at  a  time  that  he  should  be  thinking  of  going  out 
of  it.  He  honoured  me  with  the  office  of  interpreter  as 
long  as  he  stayed,  and  I  was  not  sorry  to  see  him  booked 
for  the  steamboat,  all  the  way  to  the  London  Custom 
House  stairs. 

There  is  one  remarkable  point  about  the  town  of  Stras- 
bourg, which  is,  that  the  Protestants  and  Catholics  have, 
I  believe  always,  and  do  now,  live  in  a  state  of  amity  which 
ought  to  be  an  example  to  others.  In  running  over  the 
history  of  the  town,  I  do  not  find  that  they  ever  persecuted 
171 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

each  other;  but  if  they  have  not  persecuted  each  other,  I 
am  shocked  to  say  that  they  have  not  spared  the  Jews.  At 
the  time  of  the  plague  they  accused  the  Jews  of  having 
occasioned  it  by  poisoning  the  wells,  and  only  burnt  alive 
two  thousand  of  them  at  once  !  I  wonder  when  the  lightning 
struck  the  cathedral  they  did  not  drown  two  thousand  more 
in  the  Rhine — strange  Christianity !  when  smitten  by  the 
hand  of  God  to  revenge  themselves  by  smiting  their  fellow- 
creatures.  I  had  to  call  upon  a  Professor  here  upon  some 
business ;  he  amused  me  very  much  ;  he  fancied  that  he 
could  speak  English  ;  perhaps  he  might  have  been  able  to 
do  so  at  one  time,  but,  if  so,  he  had  forgotten  it,  but  he 
did  not  think  he  had.  I  addressed  him  in  French,  and 
told  him  my  business.  "  Sir,  you  speak  English  ?  " — "  Yes," 
replied  I.  "Then,  sir,  I  tell  you  that—  Then  he 

stopped,  pondering  and  perplexed  for  some  minutes,  without 
saying  a  syllable.  "  Speak  French,  sir,"  said  I ;  "I  per- 
ceive that  you  have  forgotten  a  word  in  our  language ;  " 
and  I  then  put  another  leading  question  to  him,  to  which 
he  replied,  "Yes,  I  recollect  that  very  well,  and  I  — 
Then  another  dead  pause  for  the  verb.  I  waited  a  minute 
in  perfect  silence,  but  his  memory  was  as  treacherous  as 
he  was  obstinately  bent  upon  talking  English,  and  then  I 
again  spoke  to  him,  and  he  replied,  "  That  is  true,  that  you 

must "     Then  he  broke  down  again,  and  I  broke  up  the 

conference,  as  I  really  could  not  wait  until  he  formed  English 
words,  and  he  was  evidently  resolved  that  he  would  speak 
no  other  language.  Fortunately,  it  was  no  business  of  my 
own,  but  a  commission  from  another,  which  ended  in  an 
omission,  which,  perhaps,  did  quite  as  well. 

This  morning  I  strolled  into  a  small  debit  de  tabac,  to  fill 
my  box,  and  it  being  excessively  warm,  was  not  sorry  to  sit 
down  and  enter  into  a  conversation  with  the  young  woman 
who  attended  upon  the  customers.  I  asked  her,  among  other 
questions,  if  the  shop  was  hers.  She  replied,  "  That  she  had 
hired  the  licence."  This  answer  struck  me,  and  I  inquired 
if  she  could  obtain  a  licence  for  herself.  She  replied,  "  No, 
unless,"  said  she,  laughing,  "I  should  marry  some  old 
estropie  who  has  been  worn  out  in  the  service."  She  then 
informed  me  of  what  I  was  not  aware,  which  is  that,  instead 
of  giving  pensions  to  the  old  militaires,  they  give  them,  and 
172 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

them  onfy,  the  licences  for  selling  tobacco.  They  may  either 
carry  on  the  trade  themselves,  or  may  lease  out  their  licences 
to  others,  for  as  much  as  they  can  obtain  for  it  per  year. 

I  perceive  that  the  Gallic  cock  now  struts  on  the  head  of 
the  staff  bearing  regimental  colours,  instead  of  the  eagle  of 
Napoleon.  They  certainly  have  made  the  cock  a  most  im- 
posing bird,  but  still  a  cock  is  not  an  eagle.  The  couplets 
written  upon  this  change,  which  was  made  by  Louis  Philippe, 
are  somewhat  sarcastic : — 

' '  Le  vaillant  coq  Gaulois, 

Grattant  sur  le  fumier, 
A  fait  sortir  le  roi 

Louis  Philippe  Premier ; 
Qui  par  juste  reconnoissance 
Le  mit  dans  les  armes  de  France." 

Did  not  sleep  very  comfortably  this  night ;  there  were  too 
many  of  us  in  the  bed,  and  all  of  us  bits  of  philosophers.  I 
am  a  bit  of  a  philosopher  myself,  and  surely  fleas  cannot 
be  considered  more  than  very  little  bits.  All  French  fleas 
are  philosophers,  it  having  been  fairly  established  by  a 
French  punster  that  they  belong  to  the  secte — d' Epicure 
(des  piqueurs}. 

The  English  who  go  up  the  Rhine  to  Switzerland  generally 
proceed  on  the  German  side.  Few  pass  through  Alsace  or 
German  France,  and  those  who  do  take  the  shortest  route, 
by  which  they  avoid  Colmar.  As  I  took  the  longest  in  pre- 
ference, I  shall  in  few  words  point  out  the  features  of  the 
country.  You  pass  through  the  valley  of  the  Rhine,  which 
is  flat  and  fertile  to  excess,  the  only  break  in  the  uniformity 
of  the  country  being  the  chain  of  Vosges  mountains,  distant 
about  eight  miles  on  your  right,  and  the  occasional  passage 
of  the  dry  bed  of  a  winter  torrent  from  the  mountains. 
The  cathedral  at  Colmar  is  well  worth  seeing.  In  outward 
architecture  it  is  not  very  remarkable,  but  its  painted  windows 
are  quite  as  fine  as  those  of  Strasbourg ;  and  in  one  point 
it  excels  all  the  cathedrals  I  have  seen,  which  is  the  choir, 
handsomely  carved  in  oak,  and  with  good  pictures  let  into 
the  panels.  It  is  in  better  taste,  more  solid,  and  less 
meretricious  in  its  ornaments,  than  any  I  know  of.  It  has 
also  a  very  fine  pulpit,  the  whole  of  which,  as  well  as  the 
173 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

steps  and  balustrade  leading  up  to  it,  is  of  fine  marble.  At 
Col  mar  the  eye  will  be  struck  with  the  peculiarity  of 
architecture  in  some  of  the  old  buildings;  it  very  often  is 
pure  Saracenic.  The  roads  being  excellent,  we  arrived  in 
good  time  at  Basle. 

Once  more  in  Switzerland.  I  have  more  pleasure  now 
in  revisiting  a  country  which  has  left  pleasant  reminiscences 
in  my  mind  than  in  passing  through  one  hitherto  unexplored. 
In  the  latter  case  I  am  usually  disappointed.  When  we 
revisit  those  spots  in  which  our  childhood  was  passed,  how 
invariably  do  we  find  that  the  memory  is  true  to  what  the 
place  appeared  to  us  when  children,  and  hardly  to  be  recog- 
nised when  our  ideas  and  powers  of  mind  have  been 
developed  and  enlarged  in  proportion  with  our  frames  ?  "  Is 
it  possible  ?  "  thought  I,  when  I  returned  after  a  lapse  of 
fifteen  years  to  the  house  of  my  childhood  out  of  mere 
curiosity,  for  my  family  had  long  quitted  it.  "  Is  this  the 
pond  which  appeared  so  immense  to  my  eyes,  and  this  the 
house  in  my  memory  so  vast  ?  Why,  it  is  a  nutshell ! "  I 
presume  that  we  estimate  the  relative  size  of  objects  in 
proportion  to  our  stature,  and  as,  when  children,  we  are  only 
half  the  size  of  men,  of  course,  to  children,  everything 
appears  to  be  twice  the  size  which  it  really  is.  And  not 
only  the  objects  about  us,  but  everything  in  the  moral  world 
as  well.  Our  joy  is  twice  the  joy  of  others,  and  our  grief, 
for  the  moment,  twice  as  deep ;  and  these  joys  and  griefs  all 
for  trifles.  Our  code  of  right  and  wrong  is  equally  magni- 
fied :  trifles  appeared  to  be  crimes  of  the  first  magnitude,  and 
the  punishments,  slight  as  they  were,  enough  to  dissolve  our 
whole  frame  into  tears  until  we  were  pardoned.  Oh  dear, 
all  that's  gone,  as  Byron  says — 

"No  more,  no  more,  oh,  never  more  on  me 
The  freshness  of  the  heart  shall  fall  like  dew." 

The  cathedral  at  Basle  is  nearly  one  thousand  years  old, 
which  is  a  ripe  old  age,  even  for  a  cathedral.  I  believe  that 
it  is  only  in  Switzerland,  and  England,  and  Holland,  that 
you  find  the  Protestants  in  possession  of  these  edifices,  raised 
to  celebrate  the  Catholic  faith. 

I  met  here  a  very  intelligent  Frenchman  who  has  resided 
174 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

many  years  in  the  town.  One  of  the  first  questions  I  put  to 
him  was  the  following : — 

"  For  more  than  twenty  years  Switzerland  has  been  over- 
run  with  English  and  other  visitors,  who  have  spent  an 
enormous  sum  of  money  in  the  country :  what  has  become 
of  all  this  money?" 

He  replied  that  I  might  well  ask  the  question. 

"  They  have  no  banks  in  Switzerland ;  and,  although 
land  exchanges  owners,  still  the  money  does  not  leave  the 
country.  We  have  here,"  he  said,  "a.  few  millionaires,  who 
do  lend  their  money  in  France  upon  good  securities ;  but 
except  these  few,  they  do  nothing  with  it.  The  interest  of 
money  is  so  low  that  I  have  known  it  lent  bv  one  of  the  rich 
people  at  two-and-a-half  per  cent.  ;  and  the  Swiss  in  general, 
in  preference  to  risking  what  they  can  obtain  for  so  small  a 
premium,  allow  it  to  remain  in  their  chests.  There  is,  at 
this  present  moment,  more  bullion  in  Switzerland  than  in 
any  other  country  in  Europe,  or  perhaps  than  in  all  the  countries 
in  Europe.  A  Swiss  is  fond  of  his  money,  and  he  does  not 
use  it ;  the  millionaires  that  we  have  here  make  no  altera- 
tion in  their  quiet  and  plain  state  of  living."  He  then 
continued,  "At  this  moment  those  who  can  afford  to  spend 
their  money  at  Basle  are  retrenching,  not  from  motives  of 
economy,  but  from  feelings  of  ill-will.  The  burghers,  who 
have  country  seats,  to  which  they  retire  during  the  summer, 
have  abandoned  them,  and  if  any  one  wished  to  settle  in  this 
canton,  they  might  purchase  them  for  half  their  value.  The 
reason  is  that  there  has  been  a  difference  between  the  town 
burghers  and  the  country  people.  The  canton  wanted  a 
reform  bill  to  be  passed,  in  which  they  have  not  succeeded. 
They  required  a  more  equitable  representation — the  country 
people  amount  to  about  forty  thousand,  the  town  of  Basle 
to  only  ten  thousand ;  and  the  town  of  Basle,  neverthe- 
less, returns  two-thirds  of  the  council  which  governs  the 
canton,  to  which  the  people  who  live  in  the  country  have 
raised  objections.  Hence  the  variance,  and  to  punish  the 
country  people  by  not  spending  their  money  among  them, 
the  burghers  have  abandoned  their  country  houses." 

It  may  not,  perhaps,  be  generally  known  that  at  the  time 
of  the  three  days  at  Paris,  there  was  an  cmcute  in  Switzerland, 
in  which  the  aristocracy  were  altogether  put  down ;  and  \x\ 

173 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

Berne,  and  some  other  cantons,  the  burghers'  families,  who, 
on  pretence  of  preventing  the  aristocracy  from  enslaving  the 
country,  had  held  the  reins  of  power  for  so  long  a  period, 
were  also  forced  to  surrender  that  power  to  those  who  had 
been  so  long  refused  participation  in  it.  This  was  but  the 
natural  consequence  of  the  increase  of  wealth  in  the  country : 
those  who  before  had  remained  quiet,  feeling  themselves  of 
more  consequence,  insisted  upon  their  rights,  and  the  usual 
results  were  that  the  administration  of  the  government 
changed  hands;  but,  although  this  might  be  considered 
as  an  advantage  gained,  still  it  was  but  a  change,  or  rather 
an  admission  of  those  who  had  become  wealthy  to  a  partici- 
pation of  the  advantages  connected  with  the  exercise  of 
authority  ;  a  change  beneficial  to  a  few,  but  to  the  masse, 
productive  of  no  real  advantage.  At  Berne  to  be  a  member 
of  the  government  is  considered  as  a  certain  source  of  wealth, 
a  convincing  proof  that  the  interests  of  those  who  hold  the 
reins  are  not  neglected,  and  that  in  a  republic  it  is  as 
difficult  to  insure  to  the  people  their  legitimate  rights  as 
under  any  other  form  of  government.  And  so  it  will  be  as 
long  as  the  world  turns  round  ;  man  is  everywhere  the  same 
exacting,  selfish,  preying  creature,  and  his  disposition  is  not 
to  be  changed. 

The  Helvetic  Republic  is,  in  fact,  nothing  but  an  aggre- 
gation of  petty  despotisms— leniently  administered,  1  grant, 
but  still  nothing  but  despotisms.  Those  who  are  in  power, 
or  connected  with  those  in  power,  are  the  only  portion 
of  the  community  who  can  amass  large  sums;  and  thus 
the  authority  is  handed  down  from  one  to  the  other 
within  certain  limits,  which  it  but  rarely  transgresses,  some- 
thing very  nearly  approximating  to  the  corporations  in 
England. 

In  Switzerland,  the  working  man  remains  the  working 
man,  the  labourer  the  labourer,  almost  as  distinct  as  the 
Indian  castes:  the  nobles  are  crushed,  and  the  haughty 
burgh  rules  with  all  the  superciliousness  of  vested  right. 

I  have  always  held  a  "respublica"  as  only  to  exist  in 
theory  or  in  name.  History  has  proved  the  impossibility 
of  its  retaining  its  purity  for  half  a  century.  What  the 
American  Republic  may  be  jt  is  impossible  to  say,  until 
one  has  been  in  the  country,  and  discovered  what  its 
176 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

advocates  have  been  careful  to  conceal.  The  Americans 
had  a  great  advantage  in  establishing  this  system  of  govern- 
ment ;  they  had  nothing  to  overthrow,  nothing  to  contend 
with.  They  all  started  fair,  and  their  half  century  is  now 
nearly  complete.  Time  will  prove  whether  it  be  possible 
in  this  world  to  govern,  for  any  length  of  time,  upon  such 
a  basis.  Mr.  Cocper,  in  his  work  on  Switzerland,  is  evi- 
dently disappointed  with  his  examination  into  the  state 
of  the  Helvetic  Republic ;  and  he  admits  this  without  in- 
tending so  to  do. 

At  Soleure  I  saw  nothing  very  remarkable,  except  a  dog 
with  a  very  large  goitre  on  his  neck,  a  sight  which  I  never 
had  witnessed  before,  during  the  long  time  that  I  wandered 
through  Switzerland. 

On  our  way  to  Berne,  to  divide  the  day's  travelling  more 
equally,  we  stopped  at  a  small  village,  not  usually  the 
resting-place  of  travellers,  and  I  there  met  with  a  little 
bit  of  romance  in  real  life  which  Sterne  would  have  worked 
up  well,  but  I  am  not  sentimental.  The  house,  to  which 
the  sign  was  the  appendage,  struck  me,  at  first  entering, 
as  not  having  been  built  for  an  hoicllerie ;  the  rooms  were 
low,  but  large,  and  the  floors  parquette ;  here  and  there 
were  to  be  seen  remains  of  former  wealth  in  pieces  of 
marquetterie  for  furniture,  and  clocks  of  ormolu.  There 
were  some  old  prints,  also,  on  the  walls,  very  superior  to 
those  hung  up  usually  in  the  auberges  of  the  Continent, 
especially  in  a  village  auberge.  When  the  supper  was 
brought  up  I  observed  that  the  silver  forks  and  spoons 
were  engraved  with  double  arms  and  the  coronet  of  a 
marquis.  I  asked  the  female  who  brought  up  the  soup 
from  whence  they  had  obtained  them.  She  replied, 
rather  brusquement,  that  she  supposed  they  had  been  bought 
at  the  silversmith's,  and  left  the  room  as  if  not  wanting 
to  be  questioned.  The  master  of  the  auberge  came 
up  with  some  wine.  He  was  a  tall,  fine,  aristocratical- 
looking  man,  about  sixty  years  of  age,  and  I  put  the 
question  to  him.  He  replied  that  they  belonged  to  the 
family  who  kept  the  inn.  "But,"  said  I,  "if  so,  it  is 
noble  by  both  descents?"  "Yes,"  replied  he  carelessly, 
"but  they  don't  think  anything  of  that  here."  After  a 
few  more  questions,  he  acknowledged  that  they  were  the 
177  M 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

armorial  bearings  of  his  father  and  mother,  but  that  the 
family  had  been  unfortunate,  and  that,  as  no  titles  were 
allowed  in  the  country,  he  was  now  doing  his  best  to 
support  the  family.  After  this  disclosure,  we  entered  into 
a  long  discussion  relative  to  the  Helvetic  Republic,  with 
which  I  shall  not  trouble  my  readers.  Before  I  went,  I 
inquired  his  name  from  one  of  the  servants,  and  it  imme- 
diately occurred  to  me  that  I  had  seen  it  in  the  list  of 
those  twenty-six  who  are  mentioned  as  the  leaders  of  the 
Swiss  who  defeated  the  Burgundians,  and  whose  monu- 
ment is  carved  in  the  solid  rock  at  Morat.  Two  engravings 
of  the  monument  were  in  the  rooms  we  occupied,  and  I 
had  amused  myself  with  reading  over  the  names.  I  am 
no  aristocrat  myself,  Heaven  knows  !  and  if  a  country  could 
be  benefited,  and  liberty  obtained,  by  the  overthrow  of 
the  aristocracy,  the  sooner  it  is  done  the  better ;  but  when 
we  see,  as  in  Switzerland,  the  aristocracy  reduced  to  keep- 
ing village  inns,  and  their  inferiors,  in  every  point,  exerting 
that  very  despotism  of  which  they  complained,  and  to 
free  the  people  from  which  was  their  pretence  for  a  change 
of  government,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  if  one  is  to  be 
governed,  let  it  be,  at  all  events,  by  those  who,  from  the 
merits  of  their  ancestors  and  their  long-held  possessions, 
have  the  most  claim.  Those  who  are  born  to  power  are 
not  so-  likely  to  have  their  heads  turned  by  the  possession 
of  it  as  those  who  obtain  it  unexpectedly ;  and  those  who 
are  above  money-making  are  less  likely  to  be  corrupt  than 
those  who  seek  it.  The  lower  the  class  that  governs, 
the  worse  the  government  will  be,  and  the  greater  the 
despotism.  Switzerland  is  no  longer  a  patriarchal  land. 
Wealth  has  rolled  into  the  country  ;  and  the  time  will 
come  when  there  will  be  a  revolution  in  the  Republic. 
Nothing  can  prevent  it,  unless  all  the  cantons  are  vested 
into  one  central  government,  instead  of  so  many  petty 
oligarchies,  as  at  present,  and  which  will  eventually  tire 
out  the  patience  of  the  people. 

I  parted  from  my  noble  host,  and  will  do  him  the  justice 
to  say  that  his  bill  was  so  moderate,  compared  to  the  others 
paid  in  Switzerland,  that  I  almost  wished  that  all  the  inns 
in  the  cantons  were  held  by  the  nobility — that  is,  provided 
they  would  follow  his  example.  His  wine  was  excellent. 
178 


DIARY  ON   THE   CONTINENT 

and  I  suspect  was  laid  in  long  before  the  sign  was  hung  up 
at  the  door. 

From  Soleure  to  Berne  the  whole  road  was  lined  with 
parties  of  troops  ordered  in  that  direction;  every  man  of 
t'hem  was  drunk,  cheering  and  hooting,  and  halloing  at  us 
as  we  passed.  As  for  the  peasant  girls  they  met  on  the 
road,  I  'really  pitied  them.  At  last  we  have  arrived  at 
Berne.  The  Bernese  have  chosen  a  most  appropriate  symbol 
in  their  heraldic  crests  of  the  bear,  and,  as  if  they  had  not 
a  sufficient  quantity  inside  of  their  towns,  they  keep  four 
in  the  ditch  outside. 

What  a  difference  between  the  tables  d'hote  in  Germany 
and  in  Switzerland  !  I  always  prefer  the  table  d'hote,  when 
it  is  respectable,  for  nothing  is  more  unpleasant  than  remain- 
ing in  a  hotel  shut  up  in  your  own  room  ;  the  latter  may 
be  more  dignified  and  aristocratic,  but  it  is  not  the  way  to 
see  the  world ;  one  might  as  well  be  in  England,  and  indeed, 
had  much  better.  A  table  d'hote  is  a  microcosm  :  you  meet 
there  all  nations,  people  of  all  professions — some  idle,  some 
busy  travelling  on  important  matters,  others  travelling  for 
amusement.  You  are  unfortunate  if  you  do  not  fall  in  with 
one  clever  man  at  least,  and  you  are  quite  sure  to  meet  with 
a  fool,  which  is  almost  as  amusing.  When  I  survey  a  table 
d'hote  I  often  think  of  the  calenders  who  had  all  come  to 
spend  the  Ramadhan  at  Bagdad,  and  their  histories  ;  and  I 
have  thought  that  Grattan  might  make  a  very  good  series 
of  Highways  and  Byways  if  he  could  obtain  the  history  of 
those  who  meet  at  this  general  rendezvous.  The  tables 
d'hote  in  Germany  are  excellent,  properly  supplied,  and  very 
moderate.  I  cannot  say  so  of  those  in  Switzerland.  The 
fondness  of  the  Swiss  for  money  betrays  itself  in  everything, 
and  instead  of  liberality  at  the  table  d'hote,  we  have  mean- 
ness. The  dinner  itself  is  dearer  than  in  Germany,  and  not 
half  so  good ;  but  what  is  the  most  inexcusable  part  of  our 
host's  conduct  is,  that  he  half  serves  his  guests,  as  Sancho 
was  served  at  Barataria ;  for  instance,  as  is  usually  the  case, 
the  viands  are  put  on  the  table  and  then  removed  to  be 
carved  ;  two  ducks  will  make  their  appearance  at  one  end, 
two  chickens  at  the  other ;  they  are  removed,  and  only  one 
of  each  is  cut  up  and  handed  round,  the  others  are  sent 
away  whole  to  be  redressed  for  some  great  man  who  dines 
179 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

In  his  own  room.  This  has  been  constantly  the  case  since 
I  have  been  here.  It  may  be  asked  why  we  dp  not  re- 
monstrate. In  the  first  place,  I  prefer  watching  my  host's 
manoeuvres ;  and  in  the  next,  although  I  might  get  my  duck, 
my  host  would  charge  me  the  whole  value  of  it  when  he 
sent  in  his  bill. 

The  French  Ambassador  could  not  have  taken  a  better 
step  to  bring  the  Swiss  to  their  senses  than  threatening 
them  with  a  blockade.  It  would  have  been  ruin  to  them. 
All  the  golden  harvests  would  have  been  over,  their  country 
would  have  been  deserted,  and  their  Ranz  des  Vaches  would 
have  been  listened  to  only  by  the  cows.  As  the  French 
minister  expected,  the  councils  fumed  and  vapoured,  the 
officers  drew  their  swords  and  flourished  them,  and  then — 
very  quietly  pocketed  the  affront  that  they  might  not  be 
out  of  pocket.  What  a  pity  it  is  that  a  nation,  so  brave  and 
with  so  many  good  sterling  qualities,  should  be,  as  it  would 
appear,  so  innately  mercenary !  There  never  was  a  truer 
saying  than  "  Point  d'argent,  point  de  Suisse." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

GENEVA. 

.LWENTY  years  have  made  a  wonderful  alteration  in  the 
good,  sober,  puritanical  city  of  Geneva.  The  improvement 
from  the  new  buildings  which  they  have  erected  is  so  great 
that  I  could  hardly  recognise  the  old  city  of  Geneva  in  her 
dress.  It  was  an  old  friend  with  a  new  face,  for  as  you  enter 
the  town  all  the  new  buildings  and  streets  meet  your  view. 
As  far  as  it  has  proceeded  (for  there  is  much  left  yet  to  be 
finished),  the  new  portion  of  Geneva  is  finer  than  any  portion 
of  Paris,  upon  an  equal  space  of  ground.  But  what  surprised 
me  more  was  to  read  the  affiches  of  the  Conu'die.  A  theatre 
in  Geneva !  When  I  was  last  here  a  theatre  was  considered 
by  the  good  people  as  criminal  to  the  highest  degree ;  I 
inquired  where  the  theatre  was  to  be  found,  and  it  was  all 
true  — there  mas  a  theatre.  I  then  made  more  inquiries.  It 
appeared  that  Mammon  had  seduced  the  puritans  of  Geneva. 
People  would  not  winter  at  Geneva;  it  was  so  dull — no 
amusements ;  and  as  soon  as  the  snow  was  knee  deep  at 
180 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

Chamouny,  they  all  ordered  horses  and  flew  away  to  Paris 
or  Italy.  This  affected  the  prosperity  of  the  good  citizens, 
and  they  talked  among  themselves ;  but  no  one  of  the  Town 
Council  would  propose  a  theatre,  until  it  was  discovered,  by 
private  communication,  that  they  were  unanimously  agreed 
— then  the  proposition  was  started  and  carried.  But  there 
are  many  concomitants  attending  a  theatre,  and  with  the 
theatre  many  other  innovations  have  crept  in  ;  so  that  in  a 
few  years  Geneva  will  be  no  better  than  Paris.  When  I 
was  last  here,  science  was  the  order  of  the  day.  There 
were  many  celebrated  men  residing  in  the  town,  but  they 
are  all  gone  to  their  forefathers.  Every  branch  of  Natural 
History  had  its  savant;  but,  above  all,  Mineralogy  was  the 
most  in  vogue.  But  Mineralogy  has  been  superseded  lately 
by  her  eldest  sister  Geology,  who,'  although  not  so  pretty, 
has  been  declared  more  interesting  and  profound.  Still 
Mineralogy  is  the  more  scientific,  although  Geology  is  the 
more  speculative.  In  the  education  of  children,  I  know  no 
study  which  so  enlarges  the  mind,  or  gives  a  habit  of  re- 
search and  application,  as  that  of  Natural  History ;  it  is 
amusement  and  instruction  so  happily  blended  that  it  never 
tires.  Perhaps  the  natural  cupidity  of  our  natures  assists, 
as  the  knowledge  of  every  new  specimen  is  for  the  most 
part  accompanied  by  the  possession  of  the  specimen  and  an 
addition  to  the  collection.  Moreover,  it  is  a  tangible  study  ; 
not  a  nomenclature  of  things,  but  each  substance  is  in  your 
hand  to  be  examined.  The  arrangement  and  classification 
gives  a  habit  of  neatness  and  order,  and  children  are  taught 
to  throw  nothing  away  until  its  value  is  known.  Every  child 
should  be  made  acquainted  with  Natural  History  ;  and  where 
the  specimens  can  be  obtained,  and  there  is  room  for  them, 
they  should  be  allowed  to  have  a  collection,  such  as  minerals, 
corals,  shells,  and  plants ;  for  these  sciences,  amusing  in 
themselves,  will  gradually  impel  them  to  the  others  more 
abstruse,  as  every  branch  of  Natural  Philosophy  is  intimately 
connected  with  them.  The  mind  will  ever  be  active,  and 
if  not  interested  in  rational  pursuits,  it  will  fly  off  to  the 
sensual. 

They  have  a  very  excellent  plan  in  Switzerland,  in  many 
of  the  boys'  schools,  of  all  the  scholars  setting  off  together 
on  a  pedestrian  tour  of  some  weeks.     You  will  meet  a  whole 
181 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

school  of  thirty  or  forty  urchins,  with  their  knapsacks  on 
their  shoulders,  attired  in  blouses,  trudging  away  from  town 
to  town,  and  from  mountain  to  mountain,  to  visit  all  the 
remarkable  peculiarities  of  the  country. 

This  is  a  most  excellent  method  of  relaxing  from  study, 
and  invigorating  the  mind  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  allowed 
to  repose.  Neither  is  it  so  expensive  as  people  would 
imagine.  One  room  will  hold  a  great  many  school-boys, 
where  the  mattresses  are  spread  over  the  floor  :  and  I  saw 
them  make  a  very  hearty  breakfast  upon  bread  and  cheese 
and  three  bottles  of  wine,  among  about  forty  of  them.  Why 
should  not  the  boys  about  London  set  off  on  a  tour  to  the 
Lakes  or  elsewhere  in  the  same  way — every  year  changing 
the  route  ?  They  then  would  see  something  of  their  own 
country,  which  few  do  before  they  are  launched  in  life,  and 
have  no  time  to  do  afterwards.  I  have  never  seen  the  lakes  ; 
in  fact,  I  know  nothing  of  my  country,  although  I  have 
scoured  the  world  so  long.  I  recollect  that  my  father,  who 
had  never  seen  the  Tower  of  London,  was  determined  every 
year  that  he  would  go  and  see  it ;  but  he  never  could  find 
time,  it  appears,  for  he  died  without  seeing  it  at  last.  I  did, 
however,  make  the  observation,  that  if  Geneva  had  back- 
slided  so  far  as  to  permit  a  theatre,  there  was  a  feeling  that 
this  innovation  required  being  carefully  opposed.  When  I 
was  at  Geneva  before  there  was  no  theatre,  but  neither  were 
there  shops  which  dealt  exclusively  in  religious  tracts  and 
missionary  works.  I  observed,  on  this  my  second  arrival,  that 
there  were  a  great  many,  to  serve  as  a  check  to  the  increas- 
ing immorality  of  the  age. 

I  have  referred  to  the  change  of  twenty  years,  but  what 
a  change  has  been  effected  in  about  three  hundred  years,  in 
this  very  country.  Read  what  took  place  in  these  cantons 
at  about  the  date  which  I  have  mentioned.  I  have  been 
reading  the  chronicles.  Observe  the  powers  assumed  by  the 
bishops  of  that  period  :  they  judged  not  only  men  but  brutes  ; 
and  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  was  some  show  of  justice, 
as  the  offending  parties,  being  dumb  themselves,  were  allowed 
lawyers  to  plead  for  them. 

How  the  lawyers   are   paid  has  not  been  handed  down ; 
and  it  appears  that  the  judgments  were  sometimes  easier 
pronounced  than  carried  into  execution. 
182 


DIARY  ON  THE   CONTINENT 

At  Basle,  in  the  year  1474,  it  appears  that  a  cock  was 
accused  of  the  enormous  crime  of  having  laid  an  egg  :  he 
was  brought  to  trial  and  condemned  to  be  burnt  alive, 
as  a  warning  to  all  cocks  not  to  lay  eggs,  from  which  it 
is  well  known  would  have  been  hatched  a  cockatrice  or 
basilisk. 

In  1481,  cockchafers  committed  great  ravages  in  the 
Grisons.  The  Bishop  of  Coire  condemned  them  all  to  trans- 
portation, and  a  barren  valley  was  assigned  to  them  as  their 
future  residence.  Whether  the  cockchafers  obeyed  his 
lordship's  orders  is  not  handed  down  to  posterity. 

Some  years  afterwards  the  river  Aar  was  infested  with 
leeches,  who  spoilt  all  the  salmon.  The  Bishop  of  Lausanne 
excommunicated  the  whole  tribe  of  leeches  in  a  solemn  pro- 
cession to  the  river ;  and  it  is  dreadful  to  reflect  that  this 
excommunication  remains  upon  their  heads  even  unto  this 
day.  Also  next  door,  in  France,  in  1386,  a  sow  was  arraigned 
for  having  eaten  a  young  child,  and  condemned  to  be  hanged  ; 
to  add  to  the  disgrace  of  her  punishment,  she  was  dressed  in 
man's  clothes. 

About  the  same  period  rats  were  extremely  mischievous, 
and  in  consequence  were  summoned  to  appear  before  my 
Lord  the  Bishop.  But  the  rats  had  a  good  lawyer,  who 
first  asserted  that  the  rats,  being  dispersed  in  all  the  neigh- 
bouring villages,  had  not  had  time  to  collect  together  and 
make  their  appearance ;  and  that  a  second  and  a  third 
summons  would  be  but  an  act  of  justice.  They  were,  there- 
fore, again  summoned  after  the  performance  of  mass  on 
Sunday  in  each  parish.  Notwithstanding  the  three  sum- 
monses, the  rats  did  not  appear  in  court,  and  then  their 
defender  asserted,  that  in  consequence  of  the  affair  having 
been  made  so  public  by  the  three  summonses,  all  the  cats 
were  on  the  look-out,  and  therefore  his  clients  dare  not 
make  their  appearance  without  all  the  cats  were  destroyed. 
The  consequence  of  this  difficulty  was,  that  the  rats  were 
not  punished  for  contempt  of  court. 

I  have  often  thought  that  it  is  a  great  pity  that  agri- 
cultural associations  in  England  do  not  send  over  a  com- 
mittee to  examine  into  the  principle  upon  which  they  build 
and  load  carts  and  waggons  on  the  Continent. 

It  is  a  point  on  which  we  are  very  unenlightened  in 
183 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

.England.  The  waste  of  wood  in  the  building,  and  the 
wear  and  tear  of  horses,  are  enormous.  We  have  yet  many 
things  to  learn  in  England,  and  must  not  be  .-shamed  to 
profit  from  our  neighbours.  One  horse  will  do  more  work 
on  the  Continent,  especially  in  France  and  Switzerland, 
from  the  scientific  principles  upon  which  their  vehicles 
are  built  and  the  loads  are  put  on,  than  three  horses  will 
accomplish  in  England.  The  inquiries  of  the  committee 
might  be  extended  much  if  they  went  to  the  Agricultural 
Association  at  Berne ;  they  would  discover  many  things 
which  have  not  yet  entered  into  their  philosophy.  I  doubt 
very  much  whether  the  four-course  shift  of  Norfolk,  where 
farming  is  considered  the  most  perfect,  is  not  more  expen- 
sive and  more  exhausting  to  the  land  than  the  other  systems 
resorted  to  on  the  Continent;  that  is,  that  it  is  not  that 
which  will  give  the  greatest  possible  returns  at  the  minimum 
of  expense.  I  have  before  observed  how  very  seldom  you 
see  a  horse  out  of  condition  and  unfit  for  work  on  the 
Continent ;  one  great  cause  must  be  from  their  not  being 
racked  and  torn  to  pieces  by  overloading;  and  notwith- 
standing which,  the  loads  they  draw  are  much  heavier 
than  those  in  England.  I  have  seen  a  load  of  many  tons 
so  exactly  poised  upon  two  wheels,  that  the  shaft  horse 
neither  felt  his  saddle  or  his  belly-band. 

One  great  cause  of  the  ill-usage  of  horses  in  England  is 
the  disgraceful  neglect  of  the  public  conveyances  of  all 
kinds.  If  an  alteration  was  to  be  made  in  the  regulations 
of  hackney-coaches  and  cabs,  we  should  no  longer  have 
our  feelings  tortured  by  the  spectacles  of  horse  misery 
which  we  daily  meet  with.  There  are  plenty  of  com- 
missioners for  hackney-coaches,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  they 
had  not  something  to  do  for  the  money  they  receive,  or  else 
that  they  were  abolished  and  their  duty  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  police.  It  may  appear  a  singular  remark  to  make, 
but  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  there  would  be  a  good 
moral  effect  in  the  improvement  of  hackney-coaches.  There 
are  a  certain  class  of  people  in  London  to  whom  these 
vehicles  are  at  present  of  no  use.  I  refer  to  those  who 
have  a  sufficient  independence,  but  who  cannot  afford  to 
keep  their  carriages,  and  who,  by  the  present  system  of 
social  intercourse,  are  almost  shut  out  of  society,  or  are 
181 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

inclined  to  spend  more  money  than  prudence  would  dictate. 
In  all  other  capitals  the  hackney-coaches  are  clean  and 
respectable,  and  in  some  instances  as  good  as  a  private 
carriage ;  and  besides  that,  they  have  a  superior  kind  of 
carriage  for  evening  parties,  which  renders  the  expense  of 
a  private  carriage  unnecessary.  There  certainly  may  be 
some  excuse  made  for  those  who  dislike  hackney-coaches 
pulling  up  at  their  doors,  when  we  look  at  the  disgusting 
turn-outs  of  the  London  stands,  at  one  time  filled  with 
drunken  men  and  women,  at  others  carrying  diseased  people 
to  the  hospital,  or  dead  bodies  to  the  Surgeons'  Hall.  An 
English  hackney-coach  is  a  type  of  misery  as  regards  the 
horses'  outsides,  and  a  cloaca  within  ;  you  know  not,  when 
you  step  into  it,  whether  you  are  not  to  encounter  disense 
and  death.  It  may  be  said  that  there  are  tueh  vehicles 
as  glass-coaches,  as  they  are  tenned  ;  but  those  are  only  to 
be  hired  by  the  day,  and  become  very  expensive.  The 
arrangements  of  these  vehicles  should  be  under  the  police ; 
every  coach  and  cab  should  be  examined,  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  year,  as  to  its  appearance  outside  as  well  as  its 
cleanliness  inside.  The  horses  should  be  inspected,  and  if 
not  in  fair  working  condition,  and  of  a  certain  height,  the 
licence  should  be  refused.  And  there  should  be  a  superior 
class  allowed  at  certain  stands,  who  are  entitled  to  demand 
a  higher  fare.  This  would  not  only  be  a  boon  to  the  public, 
but  a  much  greater  one  to  the  poor  horse,  who  would  not 
drag  out  his  lengthened  misery  as  he  does  now.  When 
there  was  no  longer  any  means  of  selling  a  poor  brute,  to 
whom  death  was  a  release,  he  would  be  put  out  of  his 
misery.  It  would  also  be  a  great  improvement  if  the 
numbers  were  put  inside  instead  of  out,  as  they  are  abroad  ; 
and  if  every  description  of  vehicle,  if  well  fitted,  were 
licensed. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

1  HE  Hotel  des  Bergues  is  certainly  a  splendid  establish- 
ment ;  many  people  winter  at  this  hotel  in  preference  to 
going  to  a  pension,  which  is,  with  the  best  arrangements, 
disagreeable,  for  you  are  obliged  to  conform  to  the  usages 
185 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

and  customs,  and  to  take  your  meals  at  cet  ain  hours,  hungry 
or  not  hungry,  as  if  it  were  a  pension  of  school-boys  and 
girls,  and  not  grown-up  people.  The  price  demanded  is 
the  same  as  at  the  pensions,  viz.,  200  francs,  or  £8  per 
month,  which  includes  everything  but  wine  and  fuel.  The 
establishment  is  certainly  very  well  conducted.  There  is  a 
salon,  next  to  the  table  d'hote,  large  enough  to  hold  200 
people,  well  warmed  and  lighted,  handsomely  carpeted,  with 
piano,  books,  prints,  newspapers,  card  tables,  &c.  Indeed, 
there  is  everything  you  wish  for,  and  you  are  all  independent 
of  each  other.  I  was  there  for  two  or  three  days,  and  found 
it  very  pleasant ;  I  was  amused  with  a  circumstance  which 
occurred.  One  of  the  company,  a  Russian,  sat  down  to  the 
piano,  and  played  and  sang.  Every  one  wished  to  know  who 
he  was,  and  on  inquiring,  it  was  a  Russian  prince.  Now  a 
prince  is  a  very  great  person  where  princes  are  scarce,  as 
they  are  in  England,  although  in  Russia  a  prince,  where 
princes  are  plenty  as  blackberries,  is  about  on  a  par  with  an 
English  baronet. 

He  was  a  very  honest,  off-hand  sort  of  personage,  and 
certainly  gave  himself  no  airs  on  account  of  his  birth  and 
rank.  Nevertheless,  the  English  ladies,  who  were  anxious 
that  he  should  sing  again,  made  a  sort  of  deputation  to 
him,  and  begged  the  honour  of  his  highness  favouring 
them  with  a  song,  with  every  variety  of  courtesy  and 
genuflexion. 

"Oh  yes,  to  be  sure,"  replied  his  highness,  who  sat  down 
and  played  for  an  hour  ;  and  then  there  was  so  much  thank- 
ing, complimentary  acknowledgment  of  condescension  on  his 
part,  &c.,  and  the  ladies  appeared  so  flattered  when  he  spoke 
to  them.  The  next  day  it  was  discovered  that  a  slight  mis- 
take had  occurred,  and  that,  instead  of  being  a  prince,  he 
had  only  come  to  Geneva  along  with  a  Russian  prince,  and 
that  the  real  prince  was  in  his  own  room  upstairs ;  upon 
which  not  only  he  fell  himself  at  least  200  per  cent.,  but, 
what  was  really  too  bad,  his  singing  fell  also ;  and  many  who 
had  been  most  loud  in  his  praises  began  to  discover  that 
he  was  not  even  a  prince  of  musicians,  which  he  certainly 
was. 

We  had  a  good  specimen  of  the  ndopendence  and  fami- 
liarity of  Swiss  servants,  on  the  occasion  of  this  gentleman's 
18t) 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

singing ;  they  came  into  the  salon,  and  mixed  almost  with 
the  company,  that  they  might  listen  to  him  ;  and  had  they 
been  ordered  out,  would,  in  all  probability,  have  refused. 
An  American,  with  whom  I  was  conversing,  observed  that 
in  his  country  such  conduct  on  the  part  of  servants,  not- 
withstanding what  had  been  said  by  English  travellers  on 
the  subject,  would  never  have  been  permitted.  I  have 
fallen  in  with  some  odd  characters  here. 

First,  what  would  be  considered  a  curiosity  in  England— 
a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England  with  mustachios  ! 
What  would  the  Bishop  of  London  say  ? — and  yet  I  do  not 
see  how,  if  a.  clergyman  chose  to  wear  them,  he  could  be 
prevented.  He  has  good  authority  to  quote ;  Calvin  wore 
them,  and  so,  I  believe,  did  Luther. 

Secondly,  with  a  personage  who  is  very  peculiarly  disor- 
ganised when  he  drinks  too  much.  His  wife,  a  most 
amiable,  quiet  lady,  is  the  party  whose  character  is  attacked. 

As  soon  as  Mr. is  in  his  cups,  he  immediately  fancies 

that  his  wife  is  affected  with  the  liquor,  and  not  himself, 
and  he  tells  everybody  in  a  loud  whisper  his  important 

secret.  "There  now,  look  at  Mrs.  ,  one  of  the  best 

women  in  the  world  ;  an  excellent  wife  and  mother,  and  at 
most  times  as  lady  like  as  you  would  wish  to  see  :  but  look 
at  her  now — you  see  she's  quite  drunk,  poor  thing ;  what  a 
pity,  isn't  it,  that  she  cannot  get  over  her  unfortunate 
propensity ;  but  I  am  afeard  it's  no  use.  I've  reasoned 
with  her.  It's  a  sad  pity,  and  a  great  drawback  to  my 
happiness.  Well,  hang  sorrow — it  killed  a  cat.  Don't  notice 
what  I've  told  you,  and  pass  the  bottle." 

I  believe  that  the  English  are  better  acquainted  with 
geography  than  other  nations.  I  have  been  astonished  at 
the  ignorance  on  this  point  I  have  found  in  foreigners  who 
otherwise  were  clever  and  well-informed  men  and  women. 
When  the  Marquis  de  Claremont  Tonnere  was  appointed 
to  the  office  of  Minister  of  the  Marine  and  Colonies,  upon, 
the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  a  friend  of  mine  had  an 
audience  with  him,  and  it  was  not  until  a  very  angry  dis- 
cussion, and  a  reference  to  the  map,  that  he  could  persuade 
the  Minister  that  Martinique  was  an  island.  However,  in 
this  instance,  we  had  nearly  as  great  an  error  committed 
in  our  own  Colonial  Office,  which  imagined  that  the  Dutch 
187 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

settlement  of  Demcrara,  upon  the  coast  of  South  America, 
and  which  had  fallen  into  our  hands,  was  an  island  ;  indeed, 
in  the  official  papers  it  was  spoken  of  as  such.  A  little 
before  the  French  Revolution,  a  princess  who  lived  in 
Normandy  determined  upon  a  visit  to  her  relations  in  Paris ; 
and  having  a  sister  married  to  a  Polish  nobleman,  she  de- 
termined to  take  Poland  in  her  way.  To  her  astonishment, 
instead  of  a  day  or  two,  her  voyage  was  not  completed 
under  four  months. 

I  have  heard  it  often  asserted  that  you  should  not  build 
your  house  so  as  to  look  at  a  fine  prospect  out  of  your  win- 
dows, but  so  as  to  walk  to  view  it  at  a  short  distance.  This 
may  be  true  with  the  finest  prospects  in  other  countries,  but 
not  so  in  Switzerland,  where  the  view  never  palls  upon  the 
eye,  from  the  constant  changing  which  occurs  in  the  tinting 
of  the  landscape.  You  may  look  upon  the  Lake  of  Geneva 
every  day,  and  at  no  one  day,  or  even  portion  of  the  day,  is 
the  effect  the  same.  The  mountains  of  Savoy  are  there,  and 
change  not  their  position  :  neither  does  the  Lake ;  but  at 
one  time  the  mountains  will  appear  ten  miles  nearer  to  you 
than  they  will  at  another.  The  changes  arising  from  re- 
fraction and  reflection  is  wonderful.  Never  did  I  witness 
anything  finer  than  the  Lake  of  Geneva  at  the  setting  of 
yesterday's  sun.  The  water  was  calm  and  glassy  as  a  mirror, 
and  it  reflected  in  broad  patches,  like  so  many  islands  dis- 
persed over  it,  every  colour  of  the  rainbow.  I  cannot 
attempt  to  describe  it ;  the  effect  was  heavenly,  and  all  I 
could  say  was,  with  the  Mussulman,  "God  is  great ! " 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

JlN  this  world  we  are  so  jealous  of  any  discovery  being  made 
that  innovation  is  immediately  stigmatised  as  quackery.  I 
say  innovation,  for  improvement  is  not  the  term.  The 
attempt  to  improve  is  innovation,  but  the  success  of  the 
experiment  makes  it  an  improvement.  And  yet  how  are  we 
to  improve  without  experiment  ?  Thus  we  have  quackery 
in  everything,  although  not  quite  so  severely  visited  as  it 
formerly  was  by  the  Inquisition,  who  would  have  burnt  alive 
him  who  asserted  that  the  sun  did  not  go  round  the  earth, 
188 


DIARY  ON   THE   CONTINENT 

but  the  earth  round  the  sun.  In  medicine,  quackery  is  the 
most  frequently  stigmatised.  We  know  but  little  of  the 
human  frame  as  far  as  medicine  is  to  act  upon  it.  We  know 
still  less  of  the  virtues  of  various  plants  which  will  effect  a 
cure.  We  are  acquainted  with  a  few,  but  there  are  hundreds 
equally  powerful,  the  properties  of  which  we  are  ignorant  of. 
Could  we  add  to  medical  science  the  knowledge  of  the 
African  negroes  and  Indians,  which  they  so  carefully  con- 
ceal from  us,  our  pharmacopoeia  would  be  much  extended. 
When  metallic  medicines  were  first  introduced  into  general 
use  by  a  physician,  an  ancestor  of  mine,  and  the  wonderful 
effects  of  them  established  by  the  cures,  the  whole  fraternity 
was  up  in  arms,  and  he  was  decried  as  a  quack ;  notwith- 
standing which,  the  works  he  wrote  have  gone  through 
twenty-five  editions,  and  the  doses  prescribed  by  him  are 
to  this  day  made  use  of  by  the  practitioners. 

The  fact  is,  that  although  the  surgical  knowledge  of  the 
day  is  very  perfect,  the  medical  art  is  still  in  its  infancy. 
Even  the  quackeries  which  fail  should  not  be  despised,  for 
they  have  proved  something,  although  they  could  not  be 
perfected.  Animal-magnetism,  for  instance  :  it  failed,  but 
still  it  discovered  some  peculiar  properties,  some  sympathies 
of  the  human  body,  which  may  hereafter  give  a  clue  to  more 
important  results.  The  great  proof  of  the  imperfection  of 
medical  science  is  the  constant  change  made  by  the  pro- 
fession itself.  One  medicine  is  taken  into  favour,  it  is  well 
received  everywhere,  until  the  faculty  are  tired  of  it,  and  it 
sinks  into  disgrace.  Even  in  my  time  I  have  seen  many 
changes  of  this  sort,  not  only  in  medicine,  but  in  diet,  &c. 

What  medical  man  would  have  thought  of  prescribing  fat 
bacon  for  delicate  stomachs  twenty  years  ago  ?  Now  it  is  all 
the  vogue ;  breakfast  bacon  sold  in  every  quarter  of  the 
metropolis.  Either  this  is  quackery,  to  use  their  own  term, 
or  twenty  years  ago  they  were  very  ignorant,  for  their 
patients  received  positive  injunctions  to  avoid  all  fat  and 
greasy  substances. 

Thus  do  the  regular  practitioners  chop  and  change  about, 
groping  in  the  dark :  but  the  only  distinction  is,  that  all 
changes  made  by  the  faculty  are  orthodox  ;  but  any  alteration 
proposed  out  of  the  pale  of  M.D.  is  an  innovation  and  a 
quackery. 

189 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

That  we  have  everywhere  ignorant  men,  who  are  dc  facto 
quacks,  I  admit ;  but  still  that  term  has  been  as  liberally 
applied  to  the  attempts  of  scientific  and  clever  persons  to 
improve  the  art  of  medicine.  Even  homoeopathy  must  not 
be  totally  rejected  until  it  has  had  a  fair  trial.  It  has  one 
merit  in  it,  at  all  events,  that  you  take  less  physic. 

I  consider  the  continual  appearance  of  new  quacks  on  the 
horizon  a  sure  proof  of  the  low  state  of  our  medical  know- 
ledge. The  more  so  as  these  quacks,  although  they  kill,  do 
effect  very  remarkable  cures.  Do  not  regular  practitioners 
kill  also  ?  Or  rather,  do  not  their  prescriptions  fail  ?  If  a 
quack  cures,  they  will  tell  you  that  it  was  by  mere  accident. 
1  suspect  that  there  is  more  of  accident  in  the  practice  than 
the  faculty  are  ready  to  admit ;  and  Heaven  knows  they  so 
change  about  themselves,  that  it  is  clear  that  they  feel  no 
confidence  in  the  little  that  they  do  know ;  and  it  is  because 
medicine  is  so  imperfect  that  every  half  century  we  have 
a  new  quack,  as  he  is  termed,  rising  up,  and  beating  the 
regular  practitioners  out  of  the  field.  I  could  tell  a  story 
about  Morrison's  pills  which  would  surprise  not  a  little,  and 
all  the  parties  are  now  alive  to  prove  it ;  but  instead  of  that, 
I  will  tell  another  which  occurred  in  France,  in  which  a 
quack  medicine  had  a  most  wonderful  and  unusual  effect,  for 
it  was  the  means  of  the  total  destruction  of  a  banditti,  who 
had  defied  the  Government  of  the  country  for  many  years. 
About  twenty  years  ago — I  am  not  sure  whether  he  still  lives 
— there  was  an  irregular  practitioner  in  France  of  the  name 
of  Le  Iloi.  He  was,  by  all  accounts,  the  King  of  all  Empirics 
and  the  Emperor  of  all  Quacks.  He  was  more  potent  than 
the  sovereign,  and  the  par  I'ordre  dii  Hoi  of  Government  was 
insignificant  compared  to  the  par  I'ordre  dn  Hoi  of  this  more 
potent  personage.  He  did  not  publish  his  cures  in  pamphlets, 
but  in  large  quartos.  I  have  seen  them  myself,  larger  in  size 
than  an  Ainsworth's  Dictionary.  It  so  happened  that  an 
Englishman,  who  was  afflicted  with  the  indescribabl.es,  was 
recommended  from  every  quarter  to  buy  the  medicines  of 
Mons.  Le  Roi.  He  did  so,  and  his  unknown  complaint  was 
removed.  The  consequence  was,  that  the  Englishman  swore 
by  Le  Roi ;  and  as  he  was  proceeding  on  to  Spain,  he  took 
with  him  a  large  supply  of  the  doctor's  medicines,  that  he 
might  be  prepared  in  case  his  complaint  should  return.  All 


DIARY  ON   THE   CONTINENT 

quack  gentlemen  take  care  that  their  medicines  shall  be 
palatable;  no  unwise  precaution.  I  do  not  know  a  better 
dram  than  Solomon's  Balm  of  Gilead.  Old  Solomon,  by-the- 
bye,  lived  near  Plymouth,  and  was  very  partial  to  the  Navy. 
He  kept  an  excellent  table,  and  was  very  hospitable. 

I  recollect  one  day  after  the  officers  had  drunk  a  very 
sufficient  quantity  of  his  claret  and  champagne,  being  a 
little  elevated,  they  insisted  upon  Solomon  bringing  them 
out  some  Balm  of  Gilead  as  a  finish,  and  they  cleared  off 
about  two  dozen  one  guinea  bottles.  The  old  gentleman 
made  no  objection  to  provide  it  as  often  as  they  called 
for  more,  and  they  separated ;  but  the  next  day  he  sent 
them  all  their  bills  in  for  the  said  Balm  of  Gilead,  ob- 
serving that,  although  they  were  welcome  to  his  wine 
and  table,  he  must  be  paid  for  his  medicine.  But  to 
proceed. 

The  Englishman  travelled  with  the  king's  messenger ; 
most  of  his  baggage  had  been  sent  on,  but  he  would  not 
part  with  his  medicine,  and  this  was  all  in  the  vehicle 
with  himself.  As  they  passed  the  Pyrenees  they  were 
stopped  by  the  banditti,  who  dragged  them  out  of  the 
carriage,  after  shooting  the  postillion,  and  made  them  lie  with 
their  faces  on  the  ground,  with  guards  over  them,  while 
they  rifled  the  carriage.  They  soon  came  to  the  packages 
of  medicine,  and  observing  that  Lc  Roi  was  upon  all  the 
bottles,  and  knowing  that  they  had  possession  of  a  king's 
messenger,  they  imagined  that  this  was  some  liquor  sent 
as  a  present  to  the  King  of  Spain  ;  they  tasted  it,  and  found 
that,  like  other  quack  medicines,  it  was  very  strong  and 
very  good. 

Each  man  took  his  bottle,  drank  the  king's  health,  and 
mirth  and  revelry  took  place,  until  they  had  consumed  all 
that  the  Englishman  had  brought  with  him.  Now  there 
is  a  great  difference  between  taking  a  table-spoonful,  and 
six  or  seven  bottles  per  man;  and  so  it  proved,  for  they 
had  hardly  finished  the  last  case  before  they  found  that 
the  medicine  acted  very  powerfully  as  a  cathartic  ;  the 
whole  banditti  were  simultaneously  attacked  with  a  most 
violent  cholera ;  they  disappeared  one  by  one  ;  at  last  the 
guards  could  contain  themselves  no  longer,  and  they  went 
off  too.  The  two  prisoners  perceiving  this,,  rose  from  the 
191 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

•ground,  mounted  the  horses,  and  galloped  off  as  fast  as 
they  could.  They  gave  notice  to  the  authorities  of  the 
first  town  they  arrived  at,  not  four  miles  distant,  and  a 
large  body  of  cavalry  were  sent  out  immediately.  The 
effects  of  the  medicine  had  been  so  violent  that  the  whole 
of  the  banditti  were  found  near  to  the  spot  where  they 
had  drunk  the  king's  health,  in  such  a  state  of  suffering 
and  exhaustion  that  they  could  make  no  efforts  to  escape, 
and  were  all  secured,  and  eventually  hung. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

LAUSANNE. 

1  RECOLLECT  some  one  saying,  that  in  walking  out  you 
should  ndver  look  up  in  the  air,  but  always  on  the  ground, 
as,  by  the  former  practice,  you  were  certain  never  to  find 
anything,  although  you  might  by  the  latter.  So  if  you  will 
not  enter  into  conversation,  you  are  not  likely  to  obtain 
much  information ;  whereas  if  you  do,  you  will  always 
chance  to  obtain  some,  even  from  the  quarters  the  least 
promising.  I  was  seated  on  the  box  of  the  carriage,  with 
the  Swiss  voituricr,  and  asked  him  if  it  were  not  a  lucrative 
profession. 

"It  may  appear  so  to  you,  sir,"  replied  he,  "from  the 
price  paid  for  the  horses,  but  it  is  not  so.  All  we  gain  is 
in  five  months  in  the  year  ;  the  seven  months  of  winter 
we  have  to  feed  our  horses  without  employment  for  them, 
that  is,  generally  speaking." 

"But  have  you  no  employment  for  them  in  the  winter?" 
"  Yes,   we   put   them   into    the   waggons   and    draw   wood 
and   stone,   winch   about   pays   their  expenses.       If  you   are 
known    and    trusted,    you    will    be    employed    to    transport 
wine,  which  is  more  profitable;   but  that  voiturier  who  can 
find  sufficient  employment  for  his  horses  during  the  winter 
to  pay  their  keeping,  considers  himself  very  fortunate." 
"  When  you  do  make  money,  what  do  you  do  with  it  ?" 
"  If  we  can   buy  a  bit  of  land   we   do,  but  most  people, 
if  they   can,   buy  a   house,   which    pays   better.      I    prefer 
land." 

"  There  is  not  much  territory  in  Switzerland,  and  land  is 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

not  often  for  sale.  Everybody  cannot  buy  land.  What  do 
the  others  do  ?  " 

"  Lock  the  money  up  in  their  chests." 

"  But  do  you  never  put  your  money  in  the  foreign  funds  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  rich  do,  and  those  who  understand  it.  We 
have  a'  few  very  rich  people  in  Switzerland,  but,  generally 
speaking,  the  people  do  not  like  to  part  with  their  money, 
and  they  keep  it  by  them." 

"  I  was  told  by  a  Frenchman  at  Basle  that  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  bullion  lying  idle  in  Switzerland  ?  " 

"  He  told  you  very  true,  sir ;  there  is  an  enormous  quantity 
of  it,  if  collected  together.  Those  are  Jews,"  continued  he, 
pointing  to  a  char-a-banc  passing. 

"  Have  you  many  of  those  in  Switzerland  ?  I  should  think 
not." 

"  No,  sir,  we  do  not  allow  them.  One  or  two  families  are 
perhaps  permitted  in  a  large  town,  but  no  more.  We  are  a 
small  country,  and  if  we  were  to  allow  the  Jews  to  settle  here, 
we  should  soon  have  too  large  a  population  to  support.  By 
their  customs,  they  may  marry  at  any  age,  and  they  never  go 
into  the  field  and  work  at  the  plough." 

"  But    may    not   you    marry    at   any   age,   and    when    you 


No,  sir ;  we  have  good  laws  in  that  respect,  and  it  pre- 
vents the  population  increasing  too  fast.  I  belong  to  a  com- 
mune (parish);  if  I  wish  to  marry,  I  must  first  prove  that  all 
my  debts  are  paid,  and  all  my  father's  debts,  and  then  the 
commune  will  permit  the  cure  to  marry  me." 
"All  your  father's  debts  as  well  as  your  own  ? " 
"  That  is  to  say,  all  the  debts  he  may  have  incurred  to 
the  commune.  Suppose  my  father  had  been  a  poor  man 
and  unable  to  work,  the  commune  would  have  let  him 
want  for  nothing  ;  but  in  supplying  him  they  would  have 
incurred  an  expense  that  must  be  repaid  by  his  family 
before  any  of  the  sons  are  allowed  to  marry.  In  the  same 
way,  when  my  father  died,  although  he  received  no  assist- 
ance from  the  commune,  he  left  little  or  nothing.  The 
commune  clothed  and  educated  me  till  I  was  able  to  gain 
my  own  livelihood.  Since  I  have  done  well,  I  have  repaid 
the  debt ;  I  now  may  marry  if  I  choose." 
"  But  cannot  you  evade  this  law  ?  " 

193  N 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  No,  sir.  Suppose  I  was  at  Berne,  and  wished  to  marry  a 
woman  who  belonged  to  another  commune  as  well  as  myself. 
The  banns  must  be  published  three  times  in  my  parish,  three 
times  in  her  parish,  and  three  times  at  Berne." 

"  But  suppose  you  married  in  a  foreign  country  ?  " 

"  If  a  Swiss  marries  in  a  foreign  country,  and  has  no  debts 
to  prevent  his  marrying,  he  must  write  home  to  the  heads 
of  the  commune,  stating  his  intention,  and  his  banns  will 
then  be  published  in  the  commune,  and  a  licence  sent  him 
to  marry.  But  if,  having  debts  of  your  own  or  your  father's, 
you  marry  without  giving  notice,  you  are  then  no  longer 
belonging  to  the  commune,  and  if  you  come  back  in  dis- 
tress, you  will  be  conveyed  to  the  confines  of  the  republic, 
and  advised  to  seek  th'e  parish  of  your  wife  in  her  country. 
If  you  are  out  of  Switzerland  with  your  wife,  every  child 
that  you  have  born  you  must  give  notice  of  by  letter  to 
the  commune,  that  it  may  be  properly  registered;  and  if 
you  omit  so  doing,  those  children  have  no  claim  on  their 
return." 

Such  was  the  result  of  our  conversation,  and  I  repeat 
it  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  occupy  themselves  with  our 
internal  legislation. 

I  have  been  searching  a  long  while  for  liberty,  but  I  can 
find  her  nowhere  on  this  earth  :  let  me  be  allegorical.  If  all 
the  world  are  still  in  love  with  the  name  of  Liberty,  how 
much  more  were  all  the  world  in  love  with  the  nymph  her- 
self when  she  first  made  her  appearance  on  earth.  Every 
one  would  possess  her,  and  every  one  made  the  attempt, 
but  Liberty  was  not  to  be  caught.  How  was  it  possible 
without  her  destruction  ?  After  being  harassed  all  over  the 
world,  and  finding  that  she  was  never  allowed  to  take  breath, 
she  once  more  fled  from  her  pursuers,  and,  as  they  seized  her 
garments,  with  the  spring  of  the  chamois  she  burst  away, 
and  bounding  from  the  world,  saved  herself  in  Ether,  where 
she  remains  to  this  day.  Her  dress  was,  however,  left 
behind,  and  was  carried  horrie  in  triumph.  It  is,  however, 
composed  of  such  slippery  materials  as  its  former  owner, 
and  it  escapes  as  it  pleases  from  one  party  to  another.  It 
is  this  dress  of  Liberty  which  we  now  reverence  as  the 
goddess  herself,  and  whatever  is  clothed  with  it  for  the 
time  receives  the  same  adoration  as  would  have  been  offered 
194 


DIARY   ON  THE  CONTINENT 

up  to  the  true  shrine.     Even  Despotism,  when  in  a  very 
modest  mood,  will  clothe  herself  in  the  garb  of  Liberty. 

Now  there  is  really  a  sort  of  petty  despotism  in  these 
free  cantons,  which  would  be  considered  very  offensive  in 
England.  What  would  an  English  farmer  say  if  he  was 
told  that  he  could  not  commence  his  harvest  without  the 
permission  of  Government  ?  Yet  such  is  the  case  in  Switzer- 
land, where  there  is  a  heavy  fine  if  any  one  commences  his 
vintage  before  the  time  prescribed  by  the  authorities.  Your 
grapes  may  be  ripe,  and  be  spoiled;  you  have  to  choose 
between  that  alternative  or  paying  a  fine,  which  reduces 
your  profits  to  nil.  The  reason  given  for  this  is  that  there 
are  so  many  petty  proprietors  holding  half  and  quarter  acres 
of  vineyards  mixed  together,  and  not  separated  by  a  wall 
or  fence,  that  if  one  began  first  he  would  rob  the  vine- 
yard of  the  other — not  arguing  much  for  the  Swiss  honesty 
which  has  become  so  proverbial. 

The  case  of  the  vintage  laws  is  peculiarly  hard  this  season 
upon  the  small  proprietors.  The  vintage  has  been  late,  and 
winter  has  now  set  in,  all  at  once.  After  weather  like  summer, 
we  are  now  deep  in  snow,  and  the  thermometer  is  below  the 
freezing  point.  Few  of  the  small  proprietors  have  wine- 
presses ;  they  have  to  wait  until  those  who  have  them  have 
got  in  their  vintage,  and  then  they  borrow  them.  The  con- 
sequence is,  that  the  small  proprietors  are  alway  the  last  to 
gather  their  grapes,  and  now  they  have  been  overtaken  by 
the  weather,  and  they  will  lose  most  of  their  harvest.  Had 
they  been  permitted  to  pick  their  grapes  at  their  own  time, 
they  might  have  used  the  presses,  and  have  finished  before 
the  large  vineyards  had  commenced. 

From  the  inquiries  I  have  made,  it  appears  that  the  vine- 
yards of  Switzerland  pay  very  badly.  Land  is  at  a  very  high 
price  here,  in  the  Canton  de  Vaud ;  £300  or  £400  per  acre  is 
not  thought  dear  (£600  has  been  given) ;  and  in  the  best 
seasons  a  vineyard  will  not  yield  £10  per  acre.  The  wine  is 
very  indifferent,  and  requires  to  be  kept  for  years  to  become 
tolerable. 

But  the  Swiss  are  wedded  to  their  vineyards  ;  and  although 
if  they  laid  down  the  land  in  pasture  they  would  gain  twice 
as  much,  they  prefer  the  speculation  of  the  wine-press,  which 
fails  at  least  three  times  out  of  four. 
195 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

The  office  of  public  executioner  or  Jack  Ketch  of  a  canton 
in  Switzerland,  as  well  as  in  many  parts  of  Germany,  is  very 
appropriately  endowed.  He  has  a  right  to  all  animals  who 
die  a  natural  death,  with  their  skins,  hoofs,  &c.,  and  this,  it  is 
said,  brings  in  a  fair  revenue  if  attended  to.  Executions  are 
so  uncommon  in  Switzerland,  that  Jack  Ketch  would  starve  if 
he  was  not  thus  associated  with  death.  When  an  execution 
does  take  place  he  is  well  paid  ;  they  say  the  sum  he  receives 
is  upwards  of  twenty  pounds ;  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  he  does  not  hang,  he  decapitates,  and  this  requires  some 
address  :  the  malefactor  is  seated  in  a  chair,  not  laid  down 
with  his  head  on  the  block. 

An  execution  took  place  at  Berne  when  I  was  last  in 
Switzerland  ;  the  criminal,  after  he  was  seated  in  a  chair, 
was  offered  a  cup  of  coffee,  and  as  he  was  drinking  it  the 
executioner,  with  one  blow  of  his  heavy  sword,  struck  his 
head  clear  off;  for  a  second  or  two  the  blood  flew  up  like  a 
fountain  :  the  effect  was  horrid. 

An  Englishman  at  Lausanne  had  a  very  favourite  New- 
foundland dog  which  died.  He  was  about  to  bury  it,  when 
the  executioner  interfered  and  claimed  the  skin ;  and  it  was 
not  until  he  had  submitted  to  the  demands  of  this  official 
gentleman  that  he  was  permitted  to  bury  his  favourite  in  a 
whole  skin.  Only  imagine  half-a-dozen  old  dowagers  of 
Park  Lane,  whose  puffy  lap-dogs  were  dead  in  their  laps, 
bargaining  for  their  darlings  with  Jack  Ketch,  because  they 
wished  to  have  them  stuffed  ;  and  Jack's  extortion  raising 
his  demands,  in  proportion  to  the  value  apparently  placed, 
upon  the  defunct  favourites.  Talking  about  lap-dogs,  one  of 
the  best  stories  relative  to  these  creatures  is  to  be  found 
in  Madame  de  Crequey's  Memoirs.  A  Madame  de  Blot,  a 
French  dandyette,  if  the  term  may  be  used,  who  considered 
her  own  sex  bound  to  be  ethereal,  and  would  pretend  that 
the  wing  of  a  lark  was  more  than  sufficient  for  her  sustenance 
during  the  twenty-four  hours,  had  one  of  the  smallest  female 
spaniels  that  was  ever  known.  She  treated  her  like  a  human 
being,  and  when  she  went  out  to  a  party,  used  to  desire 
her  lady's  maid  to  read  the  animal  a  comedy  in  five  acts,  to 
amuse  it  during  her  absence.  It  so  happened  that  a  fat 
priest,  who  was  anxious  for  the  protection  of  Madame  de 
Blot,  called  to  pay  his  respects.  Madame  de  Blot  made  a 
196 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

sign  to  him,  without  speaking,  to  take  his  seat  upon  a  large 
fauteuil.  No  sooner  had  the  priest  lowered  down  his  heavy 
carcass  into  the  chair,  than  he  felt  something  struggling 
under  him,  and  a  little  recollection  told  him  that  it  must  be 
the  little  spaniel.  That  it  was  all  over  with  the  spaniel  was 
clear,  and  if  her  mistress  had  discovered  his  accident  it  was 
equally  clear  that  it  was  all  over  with  him,  as  far  as  the 
patronage  of  Madame  de  Blot  was  concerned.  The  priest 
showed  a  remarkable  degree  of  presence  of  mind  upon  this 
trying  occasion.  He  raised  himself  up  a  little  from  his 
chair  and  plumped  down,  so  as  to  give  the  poor  little  spaniel 
her  coup  de  grace,  and  then  entered  into  conversation  with 
Madame  de  Blot.  During  the  conversation  he  contrived  by 
degrees  to  cram  the  dog,  tail  and  all,  into  his  capacious  coat 
pocket.  As  soon  as  it  was  fairly  out  of  sight,  he  rose,  bade 
adieu  to  Madame  de  Blot,  and  backed  out  of  the  room  with 
as  great  respect  as  if  he  was  in  the  presence  of  royalty,  much 
to  the  satisfaction  of  Madame  de  Blot,  who  was  delighted  at 
such  homage,  and  little  thought  why  the  good  priest  would 
not  turn  his  back  to  her.  The  story  says  that  Madame 
de  Blot  never  could  find  out  what  had  become  of  her  little 


CHAPTER  XL 

_.  LAUSANNE. 

W  HAT  a  continual  strife  there  is  between  literary  men ! 
I  can  only  compare  the  world  of  authors  to  so  many  rats 
drowning  in  a  tub,  forcing  each  other  down  to  raise  them- 
selves, and  keep  their  own  heads  above  water.  And  yet 
they  are  very  respectable,  and  a  very  useful  body  of  men, 
also,  in  a  politico-economical  sense  of  the  word,  independent 
of  the  advantages  gained  by  their  labours,  by  the  present 
and  the  future  ;  for  their  capital  is  nothing  except  brains,  and 
yet  they  contrive  to  find  support  for  themselves  and  thousands 
of  others.  It  is  strange,  when  we  consider  how  very  few, 
comparatively  speaking,  are  the  number  of  authors,  how  many 
people  are  supported  by  them. 

There  are  more  than  a  thousand  booksellers  and  publishers 
in  the  three  kingdoms,  all  of  whom  rent  more  than  a  thousand 
houses,  paying  rent  and  taxes  ;  support  more  than  a  thousand 
197 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

families,  and  many  thousand  clerks,  as  booksellers  alone. 
Then  we  have  to  add  the  paper  manufacturers,  the  varieties 
of  bookbinders,  printing-ink  manufacturers,  iron  pens,  and 
goose  quills.  All  of  which  are  subservient  to  and  dependent 
upon  these  comparatively  few  heads. 

What  a  train  an  author  has !  Unfortunately  for  him  it  is 
too  long ;  there  are  too  many  dependent  upon  him,  and,  like 
some  potentates,  the  support  of  his  state  eats  his  whole 
revenue,  leaving  him  nothing  but  bread  and  cheese  and  fame. 
Some  French  writer  has  said,  "  La  litterature  est  la  plus 
noble  des  loisirs,  mais  le  dernier  de  tous  les  metiers ; "  and 
so  it  is,  for  this  one  reason,  that,  according  as  an  author's 
wants  are  cogent,  so  he  is  pressed  down  by  the  publisher. 
Authors  and  publishers  are  natural  enemies,  although  they 
cannot  live  without  each  other.  If  an  author  is  independent 
of  literature,  and  has  a  reputation,  he  bullies  the  publisher : 
he  is  right ;  he  is  only  revenging  the  insults  and  contumely 
heaped  upon  those  whom  the  publishers  know  to  be  in 
their  power,  and  obliged  to  submit  to  them.  Well,  every 
dog  has  its  day,  and  the  time  will  come  when  I  and  others, 
having  swam  too  long,  shall  find  younger  and  fresher  com- 
petitors, who  will,  like  the  rats,  climb  on  our  backs,  and  we 
shall  sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  tub  of  oblivion.  Now,  we 
must  drive  on  with  the  stream  ;  the  world  moves  on  so  fast 
that  there  is  no  stopping.  In  these  times,  "  Si  Ton  n'avance 
pas,  on  recule." 

How  the  style  of  literature  changes  !  Even  now  I  perceive 
an  alteration  creeping  on,  which  will  last  for  a  time.  We  are 
descending  to  the  homely  truth  of  Teniers'  pictures. 

Every  work  of  fiction  now  is  "  sketched  from  nature ; " 
the  palaces,  the  saloon,  all  the  elegancies  of  high  life  are 
eschewed,  and  the  middle  and  vulgar  classes  are  the  subjects 
of  the  pencil.  But  this  will  not  last  long.  It  is  the  satiety 
of  refinement  on  the  part  of  the  public  which  for  a  short  time 
renders  the  change  palatable. 

I  was  yesterday  informed  that  a  celebrated  author  wished 
to  be  introduced  to  me.  I  was  ashamed  to  say  that  I  had 
never  heard  his  name.  The  introduction  took  place,  and 
there  was  a  sort  of  patronising  air  on  the  gentleman's  part, 
which  I  did  not  approve  of.  I  therefore  told  him  very 
frankly  that  I  was  not  aware  of  the  nature  of  his  literary 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

labours,  and  requested  to  know  what  were  his  works.  He 
had  abridged  something,  and  he  had  written  a  commentary 
upon  another  thing  ! — just  the  employment  fit  for  some 
old  gentleman  who  likes  still  to  puddle  a  little  with  ink. 
One  could  write  a  commentary  upon  anything.  One  of 
my  children  is  singing  a  nursery  song;  now  I'll  write  a 
commentary  on  it  in  the  shape  of  notes  : — 

"  Pussy  cat,  pussy  cat,  where  have  you  been  ? 
I've  been  to  London  to  see  the  new  queen. 
Pussy  cat,  pussy  cat,  what  did  you  there  1 
Hunted  a  titty  mouse  under  the  chair." 

Now  for  a  commentary  : — . 

This  simple  nursery  rhyme  is  in  the  familiar  style  of 
question  and  answer,  which  is  always  pleasing ;  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  two  excellent  moral  lessons  are  to  be 
found  in  so  few  words. 

The  child  who  sings  it  may  be  supposed  to  repeat  the 
words  without  comprehending  their  full  meaning  ;  but 
although  such  may  be  the  case,  still  it  is  most  important 
that  even  the  rhymes  put  into  the  infantine  lips  should 
afford  an  opportunity  to  those  who  watch  over  their  welfare 
to  point  out  to  them  on  a  proper  occasion  the  instruction 
which  they  contain.  In  the  first  line,  the  term  pussy  cat 
may  be  considered  tautological,  as  pussy  and  cat  both  refer 
to  the  same  animal ;  but  if  so,  it  is  allowable,  as  pussy  may 
be  considered  as  the  Christian  and  cat  as  the  surname  of 
the  animal.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  cat  addressed  is 
young,  for  it  evidently  was  at  play,  and  old  cats  do  not 

£y.  Otherwise  it  would  not  have  been  necessary  to  repeat 
•  name,  to  call  her  attention  to  the  question.  The  cat 
answers  in  few  words,  as  if  not  wishing  to  be  interrupted, 
that  she  has  been  to  London  to  see  the  new  queen.  What 
Queen  of  England  may  be  referred  to,  it  is  impossible  to 
positively  ascertain ;  but  as  she  says  the  new  queen,  we 
have  a  right  to  suppose  that  it  must  refer  to  the  accession 
of  a  queen  to  the  throne  of  England.  We  have  here  to 
choose  between  three, — Elizabeth,  Mary,  and  Anne ;  and 
for  many  reasons,  particularly  as  the  two  last  were  married, 
we  are  inclined  to  give  the  preference  to  the  first,  the  word 
fiew  having,  for  the  sake  <^f  the  metre,  been  substituted 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

for  virgin.  Certain  it  is  that  a  married  woman  cannot  be 
considered  as  new,  although  she  may  not  be  old.  We  there- 
fore adhere  to  our  supposition  that  this  rhyme  was  com- 
posed at  the  accession  of  the  great  Elizabeth.  And  here 
we  may  observe,  that  the  old  adage  that  "a  cat  may  look 
at  a  king"  is  fully  corroborated,  for  pussy  says  expressly 
that  she  has  been  to  see  the  new  queen,  pointing  out  that 
as  the  sun  shines  upon  all  alike,  so  the  sun  of  royalty, 
in  a  well-administered  government,  will  equally  dispense 
its  smiles  upon  all  who  approach  to  bask  in  them ;  and 
that  even  a  cat  is  not  considered  as  unworthy  to  look 
upon  that  gracious  majesty  who  feels  that  it  is  called  to 
rule  over  so  many  millions,  for  the  purpose  of  making  them 
happy. 

It  would  appear  as  if  the  cat  continued  to  play  with  her 
ball,  or  whatever  else  might  have  been  its  amusements, 
after  having  answered  the  first  question ;  for,  on  the  second 
question  being  put,  her  attention  is  obliged  to  be  again 
roused  by  the  repetition  of  her  name.  She  is  asked  what 
she  did  there,  and  the  reply  is,  that  she  hunted  a  titty 
mouse  under  the  chair.  There  is  a  wonderful  effect  in 
this  last  line,  which  fully  gives  us  at  once  the  nature  and 
disposition  of  the  cat,  and  a  very  excellent  moral  lesson. 
The  cat  calls  the  mouse  a  titty  mouse,  a  term  of  endearment 
applied  to  the  very  animal  that  she  was  putting  in  bodily 
fear.  It  is  well  known  how  cats  will  play  with  a  mouse 
in  the  most  graceful  way;  you  would  almost  imagine,  from 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  tossed  so  lightly  and  so  elegantly, 
allowed  to  escape  and  then  caught  again,  that  it  was  playing 
with  it  in  all  amity,  instead  of  prolonging  its  miseries  and 
torturing  it,  previously  to  its  ultimate  destruction. 

It  is  in  reference  to  this  peculiar  character  of  the  cat  that 
she  is  made  to  use  the  fond  diminutive  appellation  of  titty 
mouse. 

The  moral  contained  in  this  last  line  hardly  needs  to  be 
pointed  out  to  our  intelligent  readers.  A  cat  goes  to  court, 
she  enters  the  precincts  of  a  palace,  at  last  she  is  in  the 
presence  of  royalty,  not  as  usual  in  the  kitchen,  or  the 
cellar,  or  the  attics,  or  on  the  roofs,  where  cats  do  most 
congregate,  but  actually  stands  in  the  presence  of  royalty  ; 
and  what  does  she  do  ?  Notwithstanding  the  awe  which 
200 


DIARY   ON   THE   CONTINENT 

it  may  be  naturally  supposed  she  is  inspired  \vith,  notwith- 
standing the  probable  presence  of  noble  lords  and  ladies, 
forgetful  of  where  she  is,  and  in  whose  presence  she  stands, 
seeing  a  mouse  under  the  chair,  she  can  no  longer  control 
the  powerful  instincts  of  her  nature  ;  and  forgetting  that 
the  object  of  her  journey  was  to  behold  royalty,  she  no 
longer  thinks  of  anything  but  hunting  the  titty  mouse 
under  the  chair.  What  a  lesson  is  here  taught  to  the 
juvenile  sexes  that  we  should  never  attempt  to  force  our- 
selves above  our  proper  situations  in  society,  and  that  in 
so  doing  we  soon  prove  how  much  we  are  out  of  our  place, 
and  how  our  former  habits  and  pursuits  will  remain  with 
us,  and  render  us  wholly  unfit  for  a  position  to  which  we 
ought  never  to  have  aspired. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

LAUSANNE. 

AFTER  all,  there  is  more  sympathy  in  this  world  than 
we  would  suppose,  and  it  is  something  to  find  that,  in  the 
turmoil  and  angry  war  of  opinion  and  interest,  nations  as 
well  as  parties  can  lay  down  their  weapons  for  a  time,  and 
offer  one  general  and  sincere  tribute  to  genius.  In  these 
exciting  times  we  hear  of  revolutions  in  Spain  and  Portugal, 
deaths  of  crowned  men,  with  indif"erence,  but  a  shock,  as 
astounding  as  that  of  an  earthquake  in  the  city  of  Peru, 
was  felt  throughout  Europe  when  the  numerous  periodicals 
spread  the  unexpected  intelligence,  that  the  gifted  Mali  bran. 
was  no  more,  that  in  the  fulness  of  her  talent  and  her 
beauty,  just  commencing  the  harvest,  ripe  and  abundant, 
produced  by  years  of  unremitting  labour,  in  which  art  had 
to  perfect  nature,  she  had  been  called  away  to  the  silent 
tomb,  and  that  voice  which  has  electrified  so  many  thou- 
sands was  mute  for  ever.  Poor  Malibran  !  she  had  had 
but  a  niggard  portion  of  happiness  in  this  world,  although 
she  procured  so  much  pleasure  to  others.  A  brutal  father, 
from  whom  she  received  but  blows,  who  sold  her  to  a  dotard, 
who  would  have  sold  her  again  would  she  have  consented  ! 
until  her  late  marriage,  toiling  for  others,  without  one  object 
in  the  world  on  whom  to  throw  her  warm  affections.  I 
201 


OLLA    PODRIDA 

l-emember  one  day  when  we  were  talking  of  sea-sickness, 
I  observed  that  the  best  remedy  was  beating  the  sufferer: 
she  shook  her  head. 

"  No,"  said  she ;  "that  will  not  cure  it,  or  surely  I  should 
have  been  cured  when  I  crossed  the  Atlantic  with  ray 
father." 

Those  who  knew  Malibran  only  as  a  performer  did  not 
know  enough  of  her;  they  should  have  known  her  in 
society,  and  in  domestic  life.  She  was  the  ne  plus  ultra 
of  genius  in  a  woman ;  one  moment  all  sunshine,  the  next 
a  cloud  would  come  over  her  expressive  features ;  change- 
able as  the  wind,  but  in  every  change  delightful,  for  she 
never  disguised  a  thought.  Six  weeks — but  six  short  weeks, 
and  I  saw  her  at  Brussels  at  her  country  house,  whither 
she  had  retired  after  the  fatigues  of  the  season.  How 
impressive  must  be  her  death.  Had  she  sickened  and 
died  at  Brussels,  the  shock  would  have  been  great,  for  it 
is  a  shock  when  youth,  beauty,  and  talent  are  so  suddenly 
mowed  down;  but  she  died,  as  it  were,  on  the  stage. 
Admiring  and  applauding  thousands  had  been  listening  to 
her  magical  powers,  thousands  more,  waiting  to  hear  her 
at  the  other  festivals  ;  all  eyes  were  upon  her,  all  expecta- 
tion upon  tiptoe,  when  death,  like  a  matador,  comes,  in, 
strikes  his  victim,  bows  sarcastically  to  the  audience,  and 
retires.  A  thousand  sermons,  and  ten  thousand  common 
deaths,  could  not  have  produced  so  effective  a  moral  lesson 
as  the  untimely  fate  of  Malibran.  There  is  but  one  parallel 
to  it,  and  the  effect  of  it  was  tremendous.  It  was  that  of 
Mr.  Huskisson,  on  the  opening  of  the  Manchester  Railroad. 
This  is  the  second  homily  read  to  the  good  people  of  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester.  Peace  be  with  her,  although  her  body 
is  not  permitted  to  be  at  rest. 

The  more  I  see  of  the  Swiss  and  Switzerland,  the  more 
is  my  opinion  confirmed  as  to  the  strongest  feature  in  the 
national  character  being  that  of  avarice.  The  country  is 
poetry,  but  the  inhabitants  are  the  prose  of  human  existence. 
Not  a  chalet  but  looks  as  the  abode  of  innocence  and  peace ; 
but  whether  you  scale  the  beetling  rock,  or  pause  upon  the 
verdant  turf  which  encircles  their  picturesque  habitations, 
the  demon  appears  like  Satan  in  the  garden  of  Eden.  The 
infant,  radiant  as  love,  extends  its  little  hand  for  money; 
202 


DIARY  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

the  adult,  with  his  keen  grey  eye,  searches  into  you  to 
ascertain  in  what  manner  he  may  overreach  you.  Avarice 
rules  over  the  beautiful  country  of  Helvetia. 

The  prevailing  foible  of  a  nation  is  generally  to  be  found 
in  the  proverbs  of  the  country  and  of  those  adjacent.  The 
Genevese  appear  to  have  the  credit  of  excelling  the  Swiss 
generally :  they  say  here,  "  II  faut  trois  Juifs  pour  faire  un 
Baslois,  et  trois  Baslois  pour  faire  un  GeneVois." 

Again  :— 

"  Si  un  Genevois  se  jette  par  la  fenetre,  suivez  le  ?  II  y 
aura  pour  gagner." 

It  was,  however,  a  very  neat  answer  given  by  a  Swiss  to  a 
Frenchman,  who  asserted  that  the  French  fought  for  honour, 
and  the  Swiss  for  money — 

"  C'est  vrai/'  replied  the  Swiss,  "  chacun  se  bat  pour  cela 
que  lui  manque." 

The  Swiss  have  abolished  titles,  they  have  crushed  their 
nobility ;  but  human  nature  will  prevail ;  and  they  seek 
distinction  by  other  channels.  Every  one  who  has  the  least 
pretension  to  education  or  birth  looks  out  for  employment 
under  Government  :  and  you  can  hardly  meet  with  a  well- 
dressed  person  in  the  streets  who  is  not  a  magistrate,  in- 
spector, direcfeur,  or  employe  in  some  way  or  the  other, 
although  the  emoluments  are  little  or  nothing.  The  question 
has  been  brought  forward  as  to  trial  by  jury  being  introduced, 
and,  strange  to  say,  the  majority  are  opposed  to  it  as  not 
being  suitable  to  the  Swiss.  The  reason  they  give  is,  that 
as  all  respectable  people  hold  offices  under  Government,  and 
are  thereby  excused  from  serving,  there  will  be  nobody  but 
the  lower  classes  to  sit  as  jurors.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
obtain  evidence  in  a  Swiss  court  of  justice ;  and  this  arises 
from  the  dislike  of  the  Swiss  to  give  evidence  ;  as  by  so 
doing  they  may  make  enemies,  and  their  own  interests  may 
be  injured.  This  is  completely  the  character  of  the  Swiss. 
When  I  visited  Switzerland  in  my  younger  days,  I  used  my 
eyes  only,  and  I  was  delighted  ;  now  that  I  visit  it  again, 
when  years  have  made  me  reflect  and  inquire  more,  I  am 
disappointed.  The  charm  is  dissolved,  the  land  of  liberty 
appears  to  me  to  be  a  land  of  petty  tyranny  in  the  Govern- 
ment, and  of  extreme  selfishness  in  the  individuals;  even 
the  much-vaunted  fidelity  of  the  Swiss  seems  not  to  have 
203 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

arisen  from  any  other  than  mercenary  motives.  Indeed, 
there  is  something  radically  wrong — however  faithful  they 
may  be  to  their  employers,  or  however  brave  and  talented 
they  may  be — in  the  hearts  of  those  who  volunteer  for  hire 
and  pay  to  kill  their  fellow-creatures.  I  could  not  put  my 
trust  in  such  men  in  private  life,  although  I  would  in  the 
service  for  which  they  have  hired  themselves. 

Do  the  faults  of  this  people  arise  from  the  peculiarity  of 
their  constitutions,  or  from  the  nature  of  their  Government  ? 
To  ascertain  this,  one  must  compare  them  with  those  who 
live  under  similar  institutions. 

I  must  go  to  America;  that's  decided. 


204 


SW.  AND  BY   W.   y±    W. 


JACK  LITTLEBRAIN  was,  physically  considered,  as  fine 
grown,  and,  moreover,  as  handsome  a  boy  as  ever  was  seen, 
but  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  he  was  not  very  clever. 
Nature  is,  in  most  instances,  very  impartial  ;  she  has  given 
plumage  to  the  peacock,  but,  as  every  one  knows,  not  the 
slightest  ear  for  music.  Throughout  the  feathered  race  it 
is  almost  invariably  the  same;  the  homeliest  clad  are  the 
finest  songsters.  Among  animals  the  elephant  is  certainly 
the  most  intelligent,  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  cannot  be 
considered  as  a  beauty.  Acting  upon  this  well-ascertained 
principle,  nature  imagined  that  she  had  done  quite  enough 
for  Jack  when  she  endowed  him  with  such  personal  perfec- 
tion ;  and  did  not  consider  it  was  at  all  necessary  that  he 
should  be  very  clever  ;  indeed,  it  must  be  admitted,  not  only 
that  he  was  not  very  clever,  but  (as  the  truth  must  be  told) 
remarkably  dull  and  stupid.  However,  the  Littlebrains  have 
been  for  a  long  while  a  well-known,  numerous,  and  influential 
family,  so  that,  if  it  were  possible  that  Jack  could  have  been 
taught  anything,  the  means  were  forthcoming  :  he  was  sent 
to  every  school  in  the  country  ;  but  it  was  in  vain.  At  every 
following  vacation  he  was  handed  over  from  the  one  peda- 
gogue to  the  other,  of  those  whose  names  were  renowned 
for  the  Busbian  system  of  teaching  by  stimulating  both  ends  : 
he  was  horsed  every  day  and  still  remained  an  ass,  and  at 
the  end  of  six  months,  if  he  did  not  run  away  before  that 
period  was  over,  he  was  invariably  sent  back  to  his  parents 
as  incorrigible  and  unteachable.  What  was  to  be  done  with 
him  ?  The  Littlebrains  had  always  got  on  in  the  world, 
somehow  or  another,  by  their  interest  and  connections  ;  but 
here  was  one  who  might  be  said  to  have  no  brains  at  all. 
205 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

After  many  pros  and  cons,  and  after  a  variety  of  consulting 
letters  had  passed  between  the  various  members  of  his  family, 
it  was  decided,  that  as  his  maternal  uncle,  Sir  Theophilus 
Blazers,  G.C.B.,  was  at  that  time  second  in  command  in  the 
Mediterranean,  he  should  be  sent  to  sea  under  his  command  ; 
the  Admiral  having,  in  reply  to  a  letter  on  the  subject, 
answered  that  it  was  hard  indeed  if  he  did  not  lick  him 
into  some  shape  or  another ;  and  that,  at  all  events,  he'd 
warrant  that  Jack  should  be  able  to  box  the  compass  before 
he  had  been  three  months  nibbling  the  ship's  biscuit;  further, 
that  it  was  very  easy  to  get  over  the  examination  necessary 
to  qualify  him  for  lieutenant,  as  a  turkey  and  a  dozen  of 
brown  stout  sent  in  the  boat  with  him  on  the  passing  ('  v. 
as  a  present  to  each  of  the  passing  captains,  would  pass  him, 
even  if  he  were  as  incompetent  as  a  camel  (or,  as  they  say 
at  sea,  a  cable)  to  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  ;  that 
having  once  passed,  he  would  soon  have  him  in  command 
of  a  fine  frigate,  with  a  good  nursing  first  lieutenant ;  and 
that  if  he  did  not  behave  himself  properly,  he  would  make 
his  signal  to  come  on  board  of  the  flag-ship,  take  him  into 
the  cabin,  and  give  him  a  sound  horsewhipping,  as  other 
admirals  have  been  known  to  inflict  upon  their  own  sons 
under  similar  circumstances.  The  reader  must  be  aware 
that  from  the  tenor  of  Sir  Theophilus's  letter,  the  circum- 
stances which  we  are  narrating  must  have  occurred  some  fifty 
years  ago. 

When  Jack  was  informed  that  he  was  to  be  a  midshipman 
he  looked  up  in  the  most  innocent  way  in  the  world  (and 
innocent  he  was,  sure  enough),  turned  on  his  heels,  and 
whistled  as  he  went  for  want  of  thought.  For  the  last  three 
months  he  had  been  at  home,  and  his  chief  employment  was 
kissing  and  romping  with  the  maids,  who  declared  him  to  be 
the  handsomest  Littlebrain  that  the  country  had  ever  pro- 
duced. Our  hero  viewed  the  preparations  made  for  his 
departure  with  perfect  indifference,  and  wished  everybody 
good-bye  with  the  utmost  composure.  He  was  a  happy, 
good-tempered  fellow,  who  never  calculated,  because  he  could 
not ;  never  decided,  for  he  had  not  -wit  enough  to  choose ; 
never  foresaw,  although  he  could  look  straight  before  him ; 
and  never  remembered,  because  he  had  no  memory.  The 
line,  "If  ignorance  is  bliss,  'tis  folly  to  be  wise,"  was  certainly 
20(5 


SW.  AND  BY  W.   y±   W. 

made  especially  for  Jack  ;  nevei-theless,  he  was  not  totally  de- 
ficient ;  he  knew  what  was  good  to  eat  or  drink,  for  his  taste 
was  perfect,  his  eyes  were  very  sharp,  and  he  could  discover 
in  a  moment  if  a  peach  was  ripe  on  the  wall ;  his  hearing 
was  quick,  for  he  was  the  first  in  the  school  to  detect  the 
footsteps  of  his  pedagogue  ;  and  he  could  smell  anything 
savoury  nearly  a  mile  off,  if  the  wind  lay  the  right  way. 
Moreover,  he  knew  that  if  he  put  his  fingers  in  the  fire  he 
would  burn  himself;  that  knives  cut  severely;  that  birch 
tickled,  and  several  other  little  axioms  of  this  sort  which  are 
generally  ascertained  by  children  at  an  early  age,  but  which 
Jack's  capacity  had  not  received  until  at  a  much  later  date. 
Such  as  he  was,  our  hero  went  to  sea ;  his  stock  in  his  sea 
chest  being  very  abundant,  while  his  stock  of  ideas  was  pro- 
portionately small. 

We  will  pass  over  all  the  trans-shipments  of  Jack  until 
he  was  eventually  shipped  on  board  the  Mendacious,  then 
lying  at  Malta  with  the  flag  of  Sir  Theophilus  Blazers  at 
the  fore — a  splendid  ship,  carrying  120  guns,  and  nearly 
120  midshipmen  of  different  calibres.  (I  pass  over  captain, 
lieutenant,  and  ship's  company,  having  made  mention  of 
her  most  valuable  qualifications.)  Jack  was  received  with 
a  hearty  welcome  by  his  uncle,  for  he  came  in  pudding 
time,  and  was  invited  to  dinner ;  and  the  Admiral  made 
the  important  discovery  that  if  his  nephew  was  a  fool  in 
other  points,  he  was  certainly  no  fool  at  his  knife  and 
fork.  In  a  short  time  his  messmates  found  out  that  he 
was  no  fool  at  his  fists,  and  his  knock-down  arguments 
ended  much  disputation.  Indeed,  as  the  French  would 
say,  Jack  was  perfection  in  the  physique,  although  so  very 
deficient  in  the  morale. 

But  if  Pandora's  box  proved  a  plague  to  the  whole  world, 
Jack  had  his  individual  portion  of  it,  when  he  was  summoned 
to  box  the  compass  by  his  worthy  uncle  Sir  Theophilus  Blazers, 
who  in  the  course  of  six  months  discovered  that  he  could 
not  make  his  nephew  box  it  in  the  three  which  he  had 
warranted  in  his  letter  ;  every  day  our  hero's  ears  were  boxed, 
but  the  compass  never.  It  required  all  the  cardinal  virtues 
to  teach  him  the  cardinal  points  during  the  forenoon,  and  he 
made  a  point  of  forgetting  them  before  the  sun  went  down. 
Whenever  they  attempted  it  (and  various  were  the  teachers 
807 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

employed  to  drive  the  compass  into  Jack's  head)  his  head 
drove  round  the  compass  ;  and  try  all  he  could,  Jack  never 
could  compass  it.  It  appeared,  as  some  people  are  said 
only  to  have  one  idea,  as  if  Jack  could  only  have  one 
point  in  his  head  at  a  time,  and  to  that  point  he  would 
stand  like  a  well-broken  pointer.  With  him  the  wind  never 
changed  till  the  next  day.  His  uncle  pronounced  him  to 
be  a  fool,  but  that  did  not  hurt  his  nephew's  feelings ;  he 
had  been  told  so  too  often  already. 

I  have  said  that  Jack  had  a  great  respect  for  good  eat- 
ing and  drinking,  and,  moreover,  was  blessed  with  a  good 
appetite :  every  person  has  his  peculiar  fancies,  and  if 
there  was  anything  which  more  titillated  the  palate  and 
olfactory  nerves  of  our  hero,  it  was  a  roast  goose  with 
sage  and  onions.  Now  it  so  happened,  that  having  been 
about  seven  months  on  board  of  the  Mendacious,  Jack  had 
one  day  received  a  summons  to  dine  with  the  Admiral, 
for  the  steward  had  ordered  a  roast  goose  for  dinner,  and 
knew  not  only  that  Jack  was  partial  to  it,  but  also  that 
Jack  was  the  Admiral's  nephew,  which  always  goes  for 
something  on  board  of  a  flag-ship.  Just  before  they  were 
sitting  down  to  table,  the  Admiral  wishing  to  know  how  the 
wind  was,  and  having  been  not  a  little  vexed  with  the 
slow  progress  of  his  nephew's  nautical  acquirements,  said, 
"  Now,  Mr.  Littlebrain,  go  up,  and  bring  me  down  word 
how  the  wind  is ;  and  mark  me,  as,  when  you  are  sent, 
nine  times  out  of  ten  you  make  a  mistake,  I  shall  now 
bet  you  five  guineas  against  your  dinner  that  you  make 
a  mistake  this  time  :  so  now  be  off,  and  we  will  soon  ascer- 
tain whether  you  lose  your  dinner  or  I  lose  my  money.  Sit 
down,  gentlemen,  we  will  not  wait  for  Mr.  Littlebrain's 
return." 

Jack  did  not  much  admire  this  bet  on  the  part  of  his 
uncle,  but  still  less  did  he  like  the  want  of  good  manners 
in  not  waiting  for  him.  He  had  just  time  to  see  the  covers 
removed,  to  scent  a  whiff  of  the  goose,  and  was  off. 

"  The  Admiral  wants  to  know  how  the  wind  is,  sir,"  said 
Jack  to  the  officer  of  the  watch. 

The  officer  of  the  watch  went  to  the  binnacle,  and  setting 
the  wind  as  nearly  as  he  could,  replied,  "  Tell  Sir  Theophilus 
that  it  is  SW.  and  by  W.  V.   W." 
208 


SW.   AND  BY  W.    2<  W. 

"  That's  one  of  those  confounded  long  points  that  I  never 
can  remember/'  cried  Jack,  in  despair. 

"  Then  you'll  '  get  goose/  as  the  saying  is/'  observed  one 
of  the  midshipmen. 

"  No ;  I'm  afraid  that  I  sha'n't  get  any/'  replied  Jack 
despondingly.  "  What  did  he  say — SW.  and  by  N.  ^  E.  ?  " 

"  Not  exactly,"  replied  his  messmate,  who  was  a  good- 
natured  lad,  and  laughed  heartily  at  Jack's  version.  "  SW. 
and  by  W.  ^  W." 

"  I  never  can  remember  it,"  cried  Jack.  "  I'm  to  have 
five  guineas  if  I  do,  and  no  dinner  if  I  don't ;  and  if  I  stay 
here  much  longer,  I  shall  get  no  dinner  at  all  events,  for  they 
are  all  terribly  peckish,  and  there  will  be  none  left." 

"  Well,  if  you'll  give  me  one  of  the  guineas,  I'll  show  you 
how  to  manage  it,"  said  the  midshipman. 

"  I'll  give  you  two,  if  you'll  only  be  quick  and  the  goose 
a'n't  all  gone,"  replied  Jack. 

The  midshipman  wrote  down  the  point  from  which  the 
wind  blew,  at  full  length  upon  a  bit  of  paper,  and  pinned  it  to 
the  rim  of  Jack's  hat.  "Now,"  said  he,  "when  you  go  into 
the  cabin,  you  can  hold  your  hat  so  as  to  read  it,  without  their 
perceiving  you." 

"  Well,  so  I  can ;  I  never  should  have  thought  of  that," 
said  Jack. 

"You  hav'n't  wit  enough,"  replied  the  midshipman. 

"  Well,  I  see  no  wit  in  the  compass,"  replied  Jack. 

"  Nevertheless,  it's  full  of  point,"  replied  the  midshipman  ; 
"now  be  quick." 

Our  hero's  eyes  served  him  well,  if  his  memory  was  trea- 
cherous; and  as  he  entered  the  cabin  door  he  bowed  over 
his  hat  very  politely,  and  said,  as  he  read  it  off,  "  SW.  and  by 
W.  ^  W.,"  and  then  he  added,  without  reading  at  all,  "  if  you 
please,  Sir  Theophilus." 

"Steward,"  said  the  Admiral,  "tell  the  officer  of  the  watch 
to  step  down." 

"  How's  the  wind,  Mr.  Growler  ?  " 

"  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W.,"  replied  the  officer. 

"Then,  Mr.  Littlebrain,  you  have  won  your  five  guineas, 
and  may  now  sit  down  and  enjoy  your  dinner." 

Our  hero  was  not  slow  in  obeying  the  order,  and  ventured, 
upon  the  strength  of  his  success,  to  send  his  plate  twice  for 
209  0 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

goose.  Having  eaten  their  dinner,  drunk  their  wine,  and 
taken  their  coffee,  the  officers,  at  the  same  time,  took  the 
hint  which  invariably  accompanies  the  latter  beverage,  made 
their  bows,  and  retreated.  As  Jack  was  following  his  seniors 
out  of  the  cabin,  the  Admiral  put  the  sum  which  he  had 
staked  into  his  hands,  observing  that  "  it  was  an  ill  wind  that 
blew  nobody  good." 

So  thought  Jack,  who,  having  faithfully  paid  the  midship- 
man the  two  guineas  for  his  assistance,  was  now  on  the  poop 
keeping  his  watch,  as  midshipmen  usually  do  ;  that  is,  stretched 
out  on  the  signal  lockers,  and  composing  himself  to  sleep  after 
the  most  approved  fashion,  answering  the  winks  of  the  stars 
by  blinks  of  his  eyes,  until  at  last  he  shut  them  to  keep  them 
warm.  But,  before  he  had  quite  composed  himself,  he  thought 
of  the  goose  and  the  five  guineas.  The  wind  was  from  the  same 
quarter,  blowing  soft  and  mild  ;  Jack  laid  in  a  sort  of  reverie, 
as  it  fanned  his  cheek,  for  the  weather  was  close  and  sultry. 

"  Well,"  muttered  Jack  to  himself,  "  I  do  love  that  point 
of  the  compass,  at  all  events,  and  I  think  that  I  never  shall 
forget  SVV.  and  by  W.  ^  W.  No,  I  never— never  liked  one 
before,  though •" 

"Is  that  true  ?"  whispered  a  gentle  voice  in  his  ear;  "do 
you  love  '  SVV.  and  by  W.  ^  W./  and  will  you,  as  you  say, 
never  forget  her  ?  " 

"Why,  what's  that?"  said  Jack,  opening  his  eyes,  and 
turning  half  round  on  his  side. 

"  It's  me—'  SW  and  by  W.  ^  W./  that  you  say  you  love." 

Littlebrain  raised  himself  and  looked  round  ;  there  was  no 
one  on  the  poop  except  himself  and  two  or  three  of  the  after- 
guard, who  were  lying  down  between  the  guns. 

"  Why,  who  was  it  that  spoke  ? "  said  Jack,  much 
astonished. 

"It  was  the  wind  you  love,  and  who  has  long  loved  you," 
replied  the  same  voice ;  "  do  you  wish  to  see  me  ?  " 

"See  you, — see  the  wind  ? — I've  been  already  sent  on  that 
message  by  the  midshipmen,"  thought  Jack. 

"  Do  you  love  me  as  you  say,  and  as  I  love  you  ?  "  continued 
the  voice. 

"Well,  I  like  you  better  than  any  other  point  of  the  com- 
pass, and  I'm  sure  I  never  thought  I  should  like  one  of  them," 
Replied  Jack. 

810 


SW.   AND   BY  W.    2<   W. 

"That  will  not  do  for  me  ;  will  you  love  only  me  ?  ' 

"  I'm  not  likely  to  love  the  others/'  replied  Jack,  shutting 
his  eyes  again  ;  "  I  hate  them  all." 

"  And  love  me  ?  " 

"Well,  I  do  love  you,  that's  a  fact,"  replied  Jack,  as  he 
thought  of  the  goose  and  the  five  guineas. 

"Then  look  round,  and  you  shall  see  me,"  said  the  soft 
voice. 

Jack,  who  hardly  knew  whether  he  was  asleep  or  awake, 
did  at  this  summons  once  more  take  the  trouble  to  open  his 
eyes,  and  beheld  a  fairy  female  figure,  pellucid  as  water,  yet 
apparently  possessing  substance  ;  her  features  were  beautifully 
soft  and  mild,  and  her  outline  trembled  and  shifted  as  it 
were,  waving  gently  to  and  fro.  It  smiled  sweetly,  hung 
over  him,  played  with  his  chestnut  curls,  softly  touched  his 
lips  with  her  own,  passed  her  trembling  fingers  over  his 
cheeks,  and  its  warm  breath  appeared  as  if  it  melted  into  his. 
Then  it  grew  more  bold, — embraced  his  person,  searched 
into  his  neck  and  collar,  as  if  curious  to  examine  him. 

Jack  felt  a  pleasure  and  gratification  which  he  could  not 
well  comprehend :  once  more  the  charmer's  lips  trembled 
upon  his  own,  now  remaining  for  a  moment,  now  withdraw- 
ing, again  returning  to  kiss  and  kiss  again,  and  once  more 
did  the  soft  voice  put  the  question — 

"  Do  you  love  me  ?  " 

"  Better  than  goose,"  replied  Jack. 

"I  don't  know  who  goose  may  be,"  replied  the  fairy 
form,  as  she  tossed  about  Jack's  waving  locks ;  "  you  must 
love  only  me :  promise  me  that  before  I  am  relieved." 

"  What,  have  you  got  the  first  watch,  as  well  as  me  ? " 
replied  Jack. 

"  I  am  on  duty  just  now,  but  I  shall  not  be  so  long.  We 
southerly  winds  are  never  kept  long  in  one  place  ;  some  of 
my  sisters  will  probably  be  sent  here  soon." 

"  I  don't  understand  what  you  talk  about,"  replied  Jack. 
"Suppose  you  tell  me  who  you  are,  and  what  you  are,  and 
I'll  do  all  I  can  to  keep  awake  ;  I  don't  know  how  it  is, 
but  I've  felt  more  inclined  to  go  to  sleep  since  you  have 
been  fanning  me  about  than  I  did  before." 

"  Then  I  will  remain  by  your  side  while  you  listen  to  m& 

I  am,  as  I  told  you,  a  wind 

211 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"That's  puzzling,"  said  Jack,  interrupting  her. 

«  My  name  is  SW.  and  by  W.  #  W." 

"Yes,  and  a  very  long  name  it  is.  If  you  wish  me  to  re- 
member you,  you  should  have  had  a  shorter  one." 

This  ruffled  the  wind  a  little,  and  she  blew  rather  sharp 
into  the  corner  of  Jack's  eye, — however,  she  proceeded. 

"  You  are  a  sailor,  and  of  course  you  know  all  the  winds 
on  the  compass  by  name." 

"  I  wish  I  did ;  but  I  don't,"  replied  Littlebrain ;  "  I  can 
recollect  you,  and  not  one  other." 

Again  the  wind  trembled  with  delight  on  his  lips,  and  she 
proceeded  :  "  You  know  that  there  are  thirty-two  points  on 
the  compass,  and  these  points  are  divided  into  quarters ;  so 
that  there  are,  in  fact,  128  different  winds." 

"  There  are  more  than  I  could  ever  remember ;  I  know 
that,"  said  Jack. 

"Well,  we  are  in  all  128.  All  the  winds  which  have 
northerly  in  them  are  coarse  and  ugly ;  all  the  southern 
winds  are  pretty." 

"  You  don't  say  so  ?  "  replied  our  hero. 

"We  are  summoned  to  blow,  as  required,  but  the  hardest 
duty  generally  falls  to  the  northerly  winds,  as  it  should  do, 
for  they  are  the  strongest ;  although  we  southerly  winds 
can  blow  hard  enough  when  we  choose.  Our  characters 
are  somewhat  different.  The  most  unhappy  in  disposition, 
and,  I  may  say,  the  most  malevolent,  are  the  north  and 
easterly  winds;  the  NW.  winds  are  jx>werful,  but  not  un- 
kind ;  the  SE.  winds  vary,  but  at  all  events  we  of  the 
SW.  are  considered  the  mildest  and  most  beneficent.  Do 
you  understand  me  ?  " 

"  Not  altogether.  You're  going  right  round  the  compass, 
and  I  never  could  make  it  out,  that's  a  fact.  I  hear  what 
you  say,  but  I  cannot  promise  to  recollect  it ;  I  can  only 
recollect  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W." 

"  I  care  only  for  your  recollecting  me  ;  if  you  do  that, 
you  may  forget  all  the  rest.  Now,  you  see  we  South  Wests 
are  summer  winds,  and  are  seldom  required  but  in  this 
season  ;  I  have  often  blown  over  your  ship  these  last  three 
months,  and  I  always  have  lingered  near  you,  for  I  loved 
you." 

"Thank  you — now  go  on,  for  seven  bells  have  struck 
212 


SW.   AND   BY   W.    24   W. 

some  time,  and  I  shall  be  going  to  turn  in.  Is  your  watch 
out  ?  " 

"  No,  I  shall  blow  for  some  hours  longer.  Why  will  you 
leave  me — why  won't  you  stay  on  deck  with  me  ?" 

"  What,  stay  on  deck  after  my  watch  is  out  !  No,  if  I  do, 
blow  me  !  We  midshipmen  never  do  that — but  I  say,  why 
can't  you  come  down  with  me,  and  turn  in  my  hammock  ? — it's 
close  to  the  hatchway,  and  you  can  easily  do  it." 

"  Well,  I  will,  upon  one  promise.  You  say  that  you  love 
me  ;  now,  I'm  very  jealous,  for  we  winds  are  always  supplant- 
ing one  another.  Promise  me  that  you  will  never  mention 
any  other  wind  in  the  compass  but  me,  for  if  you  do,  they 
may  come  to  you,  and  if  I  hear  of  it  I'll  blow  the  masts  out 
of  your  ship,  that  I  will." 

"  You  don't  say  so  ?  "  replied  Jack,  surveying  her  fragile, 
trembling  form. 

"  Yes,  I  will,  and  on  a  lee  shore  too ;  so  that  the  ship  shall 
go  to  pieces  on  the  rocks,  and  the  Admiral  and  every  soul  on 
board  her  be  drowned." 

"  No,  you  wouldn't,  would  you  ?  "  said  our  hero,  astonished. 
."Not  if  you  promise  me.  Then  I'll  come  to  you  and  pour 
down  your  windsails,  and  dry  your  washed  clothes,  as  they 
hang  on  the  rigging,  and  just  ripple  the  waves  as  you  glide 
along,  and  hang  upon  the  lips  of  my  dear  love,  and  press  him 
in  my  arms.  Promise  me,  then,  on  no  account  ever  to  recol- 
lect or  mention  any  other  wind  but  me." 

"  Well,  I  think  I  may  promise  that,"  replied  Jack,  "  I'm 
very  clever  at  forgetting ;  and  then  you'll  come  to  my  ham- 
mock, won't  you,  and  sleep  with  me  ?  you'll  be  a  nice  cool 
bedfellow  these  warm  nights." 

"  I  can't  sleep  on  my  watch,  as  midshipmen  do ;  but  I'll 
watch  you  while  you  sleep,  and  I'll  fan  your  cheeks,  and 
keep  you  cool  and  comfortable,  till  I'm  relieved." 

"  And  when  you  go,  when  will  you  come  again  ?  " 

"That  I  cannot  tell — when  I'm  summoned;  and  I  shall 
wait  with  impatience,  that  you  may  be  sure  of." 

"There's  eight  bells,"  said  Jack,  starting  up;  "I  must  go 
down  and  call  the  officer  of  the  middle  watch  :  but  I'll  soon 
turn  in,  for  my  relief  is  not  so  big  as  myself,  and  I  can  thrash 
him." 

Littlebrain  was  as  good  as  his  word  ;  he  cut  down  his 
213 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

relief,  and  then  thrashed  him  for  venturing  to  expostulate. 
The  consequence  was  that  in  ten  minutes  he  was  in  his 
hammock,  and  "  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W."  came  gently  down 
the  hatchway,  and  rested  in  his  arms.  Jack  soon  fell  fast 
asleep,  and  when  he  was  wakened  up  the  next  morning  by 
the  quartermaster,  his  bedfellow  was  no  longer  there.  A 
mate,  inquiring  how  the  wind  was,  was  answered  by  the 
quartermaster  that  they  had  a  fresh  breeze  from  the  NNW., 
by  which  Jack  understood  that  his  sweetheart  was  no  longer 
on  duty. 

Our  hero  had  passed  such  a  happy  night  with  his  soft  and 
kind  companion  that  he  could  think  of  nothing  else ;  he 
longed  for  her  to  come  again,  and,  to  the  surprise  of  every- 
body, was  now  perpetually  making  inquiries  as  to  the  wind 
which  blew.  He  thought  of  her  continually  ;  and  in  fact 
was  as  much  in  love  with  "  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W."  as  he 
possibly  could  be.  She  came  again — once  more  did  he 
enjoy  her  delightful  company  ;  again  she  slept  with  him  in 
his  hammock,  and  then,  after  a  short  stay,  she  was  relieved 
by  another. 

We  do  not  intend  to  accuse  the  wind  of  inconstancy,  as 
that  was  not  her  fault;  nor  of  treachery,  for  she  loved 
dearly  ;  nor  of  violence,  for  she  was  all  softness  and  mildness; 
but  we  do  say  that  "  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W."  was  the  occa- 
sion of  Jack  being  very  often  in  a  scrape,  for  our  hero  kept 
his  word  ;  he  forgot  all  other  winds,  and  with  him  there 
was  no  other  except  his  dear  "SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W."  It 
must  be  admitted  of  Jack  that,  at  all  events,  he  showed 
great  perseverance,  for  he  stuck  to  his  point. 

Our  hero  would  argue  with  his  messmates,  for  it  is  not 
those  who  are  most  capable  of  arguing  who  are  most  fond 
of  it ;  and,  like  all  arguers  not  very  brilliant,  he  would 
flounder  and  diverge  away  right  and  left,  just  as  the  flow 
of  ideas  came  into  his  head. 

"  What  nonsense  it  is  your  talking  that  way,"  would  his 
opponent  say  ;  "  why  don't  you  come  to  the  point  ?  " 

"  And  so  do  I,"  cried  Jack. 

"Well,  then,  what  is  your  point  ?" 

"SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W.,"  replied  our  hero. 

Who  could  reply  to  this  ?  But  in  every  instance,  and 
through  every  difficulty,  our  hero  kept  his  promise,  until  his 
214 


SW.   AND  BY  W.   ^  W. 

uncle  Sir  Theophilus  was  very  undecided  whether  he  should 
send  him  home  to  be  locked  up  in  a  Lunatic  Asylum,  or  bring 
him  on  in  the  service  to  the  rank  of  post-captain.  Upon 
mature  consideration,  however,  as  a  man  in  Bedlam  is  a  very 
useless  member  of  society,  and  a  teetotal  non-productive, 
whereas  a  captain  in  the  navy  is  a  responsible  agent,  the 
Admiral  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Littlebrain  must  follow 
up  his  destiny. 

At  last,  Jack  was  set  down  as  the  greatest  fool  in  the  ship, 
and  was  pointed  out  as  such.  The  ladies  observed  that  such 
might  possibly  be  the  case,  but,  at  all  events,  he  was  the 
handsomest  young  man  in  the  Mediterranean  fleet.  We  be- 
lieve that  both  parties  were  correct  in  their  assertion. 

Time  flies — even  a  midshipman's  time,  which  does  not  fly 
quite  so  fast  as  his  money — and  the  time  came  for  Mr.  Little- 
brain's  examination.  Sir  Theophilus,  who  now  commanded 
the  whole  fleet,  was  almost  in  despair.  How  was  it  possible 
that  a  man  could  navigate  a  ship  with  only  one  quarter  point 
of  the  compass  in  his  head  ? 

Sir  Theophilus  scratched  his  wig ;  and  the  disposition  of 
the  Mediterranean  fleet,  so  important  to  the  countrv,  was 
altered  according  to  the  dispositions  of  the  captains  who 
commanded  the  ships.  In  those  days  there  were  martinets 
in  the  service — officers  who  never  overlooked  an  offence,  or 
permitted  the  least  deviation  from  strict  duty  ;  who  were 
generally  hated,  but,  at  the  same  time,  were  most  valuable 
to  the  service.  As  for  his  nephew  passing  his  examination 
before  any  of  those  of  the  first  or  second,  or  even  the  third 
degree,  the  Admiral  knew  that  it  was  impossible.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  one  was  sent  away  on  a  mission  to  Genoa 
about  nothing ;  another  to  watch  for  vessels  never  expected, 
off  Sardinia;  two  more  to  cruise  after  a  French  frigate  which 
had  never  been  built :  and  thus,  by  degrees,  did  the  Admiral 
arrange,  so  as  to  obtain  a  set  of  officers  sufficiently  pliant  to 
allow  his  nephew  to  creep  under  the  gate  which  barred  his 
promotion,  and  which  he  never  could  have  vaulted  over.  So 
the  signal  was  made — our  hero  went  on  board — his  uncle  had 
not  forgotten  the  propriety  of  a  little  douceur  on  the  occa- 
sion ;  and,  as  the  turkeys  were  all  gone,  three  couple  of  geese 
were  sent  in  the  same  boat,  as  a  present  to  each  of  the  three 
passing  captains.  Littlebrain's  heart  failed  him  as  he  pulled 
215 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

to  the  ship ;  even  the  geese  hissed  at  him,  as  much  as  to  say, 
"  If  you  were  not  such  a  stupid  ass,  we  might  have  been  left 
alive  in  our  coops."  There  was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  that 
remark,  if  they  did  say  so. 

Nothing  could  have  been  made  more  easy  for  Littlebrain 
than  his  examination.  The  questions  had  all  been  arranged 
beforehand ;  and  some  kind  friend  had  given  him  all  the 
answers  written  down.  The  passing  captains  apparently 
suffered  from  the  heat  of  the  weather,  and  each  had  his 
hand  on  his  brow,  looking  down  on  the  table  at  the  time 
that  Littlebrain  gave  his  answers,  so  that  of  course  they 
did  not  observe  that  he  was  reading  them  off.  As  soon  as 
Littlebrain  had  given  his  answer,  and  had  had  sufficient  time 
to  drop  his  paper  under  the  table,  the  captains  felt  better 
and  looked  up  again. 

There  were  but  eight  questions  for  our  hero  to  answer. 
Seven  had  been  satisfactorily  got  through ;  then  came  the 
eighth,  a  very  simple  one : — "  What  is  your  course  and  dis- 
tance from  Ushant  to  the  Start  ?"  This  question  having  been 
duly  put,  the  captains  were  again  in  deep  meditation,  shroud- 
ing their  eves  with  the  palms  of  their  hands. 

Littlebrain  had  his  answer — he  looked  at  the  paper.  What 
could  be  more  simple  than  to  reply  ? — and  then  the  captains 
would  have  all  risen  up,  shaken  him  by  the  hand,  compli- 
mented him  upon  the  talent  he  had  displayed,  sent  their 
compliments  to  the  commander-in-chief,  and  their  thanks 
for  the  geese.  Jack  was  just  answering,  "  North " 

"  Recollect  your  promise! !  "  cried  a  soft  voice,  which  Jack 
well  recollected. 

Jack  stammered  —  the  captains  were  mute  —  and  waited 
patiently. 

"  1  must  say  it,"  muttered  Jack. 

"You  shan't,"  replied  the  little  Wind. 

"Indeed  I  must,"  said  Jack,  "or  I  shall  be  turned  back." 

The  captains,  surprised  at  this  delay  and  the  muttering 
of  Jack,  looked  up,  and  one  of  them  gently  inquired  if  Mr. 
Littlebrain  had  not  dropped  his  handkerchief  or  something 
under  the  table  ?  And  then  they  again  fixed  their  eyes 
upon  the  green  cloth. 

"If  you  dare,  I'll  never  see  you  again,"  cried  "SW. 
and  by  W.  ^  W.," — "never  come  to  your  hammock, — 
216 


SW.   AND   BY  W.    y±   W. 

but  I'll  blow  the  ship  on  shore,  every  soul  shall  be  lost, 
Admi'al  and  all  ;  recollect  your  promise?" 

"Then  I  shall  never  pass,"  replied  Jack. 

"  Do  you  think  that  any  other  point  in  the  compass  shall 
pass  you  except  me  ? — never !  I  am  too  jealous  for  that. 
Come  now,  dearest  ? "  and  the  Wind  again  deliciously 
trembled  upon  the  lips  of  our  hero,  who  could  no  longer 
resist. 

"  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W.,"  exclaimed  Jack  firmly. 

"  You  have  made  a  slight  mistake,  Mr.  Littlebrain," 
said  one  of  the  captains.  "  Look  again — I  meant  to  say, 
think  again." 

"  SW.  and  by  W.  ^  W.,"  again  repeated  Jack. 

"  Dearest,  how  I  love  you  ! "  whispered  the  soft  Wind. 

"Why,  Mr.  Littlebrain,"  said  one  of  the  captains — for 
Jack  had  actually  laid  the  paper  down  on  the  table — "what's 
in  the  wind  now  ?  " 

"  She's  obstinate,"  replied  Jack. 

"  You  appear  to  be  so,  at  all  events,"  replied  the  captain. 
"  Pray  try  once  more." 

"  I  have  it ! "  thought  Jack,  who  tore  off  the  last  answer 
from  his  paper.  "  I  gained  five  guineas  by  that  plan  once 
before."  He  then  handed  the  bit  of  paper  to  the  passing 
captain.  "  I  believe  that's  right,  sir,"  said  our  hero. 

"  Yes,  that  is  right ;  but  could  you  not  have  said  it  instead 
of  writing  it,  Mr.  Littlebrain?" 

Jack  made  no  reply  ;  his  little  sweetheart  pouted  a  little, 
but  said  nothing ;  it  was  an  evasion  which  she  did  not  like. 
A  few  seconds  of  consultation  then  took  place,  as  a  matter  of 
form.  Each  captain  asked  of  the  other  if  he  was  perfectly 
satisfied  as  to  Mr.  Littlebrain's  capabilites,  and  the  reply 
was  in  the  affirmative  ;  and  they  were  perfectly  satisfied 
that  he  was  either  a  fool  or  a  madman.  However,  as  we 
have  had  both  in  the  service  by  way  of  precedent,  Jack 
was  added  to  the  list,  and  the  next  day  was  appointed 
lieutenant. 

Our  hero  did  his  duty  as  lieutenant  of  the  forecastle ; 
and  as  all  the  duty  of  that  officer  is,  when  hailed  from  the 
quarter-deck,  to  answer  "Ay,  ay,  air,"  he  got  on  without 
making  many  mistakes.  And  now  he  was  very  happy  ;  r.o  one 
dared  to  call  him  a  fool  except  his  uncle  ;  he  had  his  own 
317 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

cabin,  and  many  was  the  time  that  his  dear  little  "SW. 
and  by  W.  ^  W."  would  come  in  by  the  scuttle,  and  nestle 
by  his  side. 

"  You  won't  see  so  much  of  me  soon,  dearest,"  said  she, 
one  morning,  gravely. 

"  Why  not,  my  soft  one  ?  "  replied  Jack. 

"Don't  you  recollect  that  the  winter  months  are  com- 
ing on  ?  " 

"So  they  are,"  replied  Jack.  "Well,  I  shall  long  for 
you  back." 

And  Jack  did  long,  and  long  very  much,  for  he  loved  his 
dear  wind,  and  the  fine  weather  which  accompanied  her. 
Winter  came  on,  and  heavy  gales  and  rain,  and  thunder  and 
lightning ;  nothing  but  double-reefed  topsails,  and  wearing 
in  succession  ;  and  our  hero  walked  the  forecastle,  and 
thought  of  his  favourite  wind.  The  NE.  winds  came  down 
furiously,  and  the  weather  was  bitter  cold.  The  officers 
shook  the  rain  and  spray  off  their  garments  when  their 
watch  was  over,  and  called  for  grog. 

"Steward,  a  glass  of  grog,"  cried  one,  "and  let  it  be 
strong." 

"The  same  for  me,"  said  Jack ;  "only,  I'll  mix  it  myself." 

Jack  poured  out  the  rum  till  the  tumbler  was  half  full. 

"  Why,  Littlebrain,"  said  his  messmate,  "  that  is  a  dose ; 
that's  what  we  call  a  regular  Nor-wester." 

"  Is  it  ?  "  replied  Jack.  "  Well  then,  Nor-westers  suit  me 
exactly,  and  I  shall  stick  to  them  like  cobbler's  wax." 

And  during  the  whole  of  the  winter  months  our  hero 
showed  a  great  predilection  for  Nor-westers. 

It  was  in  the  latter  end  of  February  that  there  was  a 
heavy  gale  ;  it  had  blown  furiously  from  the  northward  for 
three  days,  and  then  it  paused  and  panted  as  if  out  of 
breath  —no  wonder !  And  then  the  wind  shifted,  and  shifted 
again,  with  squalls  and  heavy  rain,  until  it  blew  from  every 
quarter  of  the  compass. 

Our  hero's  watch  was  over,  and  he  came  down  and  called 
for  a  "  Nor-wester  "  as  usual. 

"How  is  the  wind  now?"  asked  the  first  lieutenant  of 
the  master,  who  came  down  dripping  wet. 

"  SSW.,  but  drawing  now  fast  to  the  Westward,"  said  old 
Spunyarn. 

Sift 


SW.   AND   BY  W.    #   W. 

And  so  it  was ;  and  it  veered  round  until  "  SW.  and  by 
W.  %  W.,"  with  an  angry  gust,  came  down  the  skylight,  and 
blowing  strongly  into  our  hero's  ear,  cried — 

"  Oh,  you  false  one  ! " 

"False!"  exclaimed  Jack.  "What!  you  here,  and  so 
angry  too  ?  What's  the  matter  ?  " 

"  What's  the  matter  ! — do  you  think  I  don't  know  ?  What 
have  you  been  doing  ever  since  I  was  away,  comforting  your- 
self during  my  absence  with  Nor-westers  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  an't  jealous  of  a  Nor-wester,  are  you  ?  "  replied 
Littlebrain.  "I  confess,  I'm  rather  partial  to  them." 

"  What ! — this  to  my  face  ! — I'll  never  come  again,  with- 
out you  promise  me  that  you  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them,  and  never  call  for  one  again.  Be  quick — I  cannot  stay 
more  than  two  minutes ;  for  it  is  hard  work  now,  and  we 
relieve  quick — say  the  word." 

"Well,  then,"  replied  Littlebrain,  "you've  no  objection  to 
half-and-half?" 

"  None  in  the  world  ;  that's  quite  another  thing,  and  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  wind." 

"It  has,  though,"  thought  Jack,  "for  it  gets  a  man  in  the 
wind;  but  I  won't  tell  her  so;  and,"  continued  he,  "you 
don't  mind  a  raw  nip,  do  you  ?  " 

"No — I  care  for  nothing  except  a  Nor-wester." 

"  I'll  never  call  for  one  again,"  replied  Jack  !  "  it  is  but 
making  my  grog  a  little  stronger ;  in  future  it  shall  be  half- 
and-half." 

"That's  a  dear!  Now  I'm  off — don't  forget  me;"  and 
away  went  the  wind  in  a  great  hurry. 

It  was  about  three  months  after  this  short  visit,  the  fleet 
being  off  Corsica,  that  our  hero  was  walking  the  deck,  think- 
ing that  he  soon  should  see  the  object  of  his  affections,  when 
a  privateer  brig  was  discovered  at  anchor  a  few  miles  from 
Bastia.  The  signal  was  made  for  the  boats  of  the  fleet  to 
cut  her  out ;  and  the  Admiral,  wishing  that  his  nephew 
should  distinguish  himself  somehow,  gave  him  the  command 
of  one  of  the  finest  boats.  Now  Jack  was  as  brave  as  brave 
could  be  ;  he  did  not  know  what  danger  was ;  he  hadn't  wit 
enough  to  perceive  it,  and  there  was  no  doubt  but  he  would 
distinguish  himself.  The  boats  went  on  the  service.  Jack 
was  the  very  first  on  board,  cheering  his  men  as  he  darted 
319 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

into  the  closed  ranks  of  his  opponents.  Whether  it  was  that 
he  did  not  think  that  his  head  was  worth  defending,  or  that 
he  was  too  busy  in  breaking  the  heads  of  others  to  look 
after  his  own,  this  is  certain,  that  a  tomahawk  descended  upon 
it  with  such  force  as  to  bury  itself  in  his  skull  (and  his  was  a 
thick  skull  too).  The  privateer's  men  were  overpowered 
by  numbers,  and  then  our  hero  vras  discovered,  under  a  pile 
of  bodies,  still  breathing  heavily.  He  was  hoisted  on  board, 
and  taken  into  his  uncle's  cabin :  the  surgeon  shook  his  head 
when  he  had  examined  that  of  our  hero. 

"It  must  have  been  a  most  tremendous  blow,"  said  he  to 
the  Admiral,  "  to  have  penetrated — 

"  It  must  have  been,  indeed,"  replied  the  Admiral,  as  the 
tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks,  for  he  loved  his  nephew. 

The  surgeon  having  done  all  that  his  art  would  enable 
him,  left  the  cabin  to  attend  to  the  others  who  were  hurt ; 
the  Admiral  also  went  on  the  quarter-deck,  walking  to  and 
fro  for  an  hour  in  a  melancholy  mood.  He  returned  to  the 
cabin,  and  bent  over  his  nephew ;  Jack  opened  his  eyes. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  the  Admiral,  "  how's  your  head 
now." 

«SW.  and  by  IV.  %  W."  faintly  exclaimed  our  hero, 
constant  in  death,  as  he  turned  a  little  on  one  side  and 
expired. 

It  was  three  days  afterwards,  as  the  fleet  were  on  a  wind, 
making  for  Malta,  that  the  bell  of  the  ship  tolled,  and  a 
body,  sewed  up  in  a  hammock  and  covered  with  the  Union 
Jack,  was  carried  to  the  gangway  by  the  Admiral's  barge- 
men. It  had  been  a  dull,  cloudy  day,  with  little  wind ;  the 
hands  were  turned  up,  the  officers  and  men  stood  uncovered  ; 
the  Admiral  in  advance  with  his  arms  folded,  as  the  chaplain 
read  the  funeral  service  over  the  body  of  our  hero, — and  as 
the  service  proceeded,  the  sails  flapped,  for  the  wind  had 
shifted  a  little ;  a  motion  was  made,  by  the  hand  of  the 
officer  of  the  watch,  to  the  man  at  the  helm  to  let  the  ship 
go  off  the  wind,  that  the  service  might  not  be  disturbed,  and 
a  mizzling  soft  rain  descended.  The  wind  had  shifted  to  our 
hero's  much  loved  point,  his  fond  mistress  had  come  to  mourn 
over  the  loss  of  her  dearest,  and  the  rain  that  descended  was 
the  tears  which  she  shed  at  the  death  of  her  handsome  but 
not  over-gifted  lover. 


ILL-WILL 


DRAMATIS   PERSONA 

Mr.  CADAVEROUS,  An  old  miser,  very  rich,  and  very  ill. 
EDWARD,  A  young  lawyer  without  a  brief. 

Mr.  HAUSTUS  GUMARABIC,  Apothecary. 

SEEDY,  Solicitor. 

THOMAS  MONTAGU,  )  ,,.    , 

JOHN  MONTAGU,      j  NePJuiv"  to  Mr-  Cadaverous. 

JAMES  STERLING,       )  ,7    , 

WILLIAM  STERLING    1  -Nephews  twice  removed  to  Mr.  Cadaverous. 

CLEMENTINA  MONTAGU,  Niece  to  Mr.  Cadaverous. 
Mrs.  JELLYBAGS,  Housekeeper  and  Nurse. 


ACT  I. 

SCENE. — A  sick  room. — Mr.  CADAVEROUS  in  an  easy -chair 
asleep,  supported  by  cushions,  wrapped  up  in  his  dressing- 
gown,  a  night-cap  on  his  head. — A  small  table  with  phials, 
gallipots,  fyc. — Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  seated  on  a  chair  close  to  the 
table. 

Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  (looks  at  Mr.  CADAVEROUS,  and  then  comes 
forward).  He  sleeps  yet — the  odious  old  rniser  !  Mercy  on 
me,  how  I  do  hate  him, — almost  as  much  as  he  loves  his 
money !  Well,  there's  one  comfort,  he  cannot  take  his 
money-bags  with  him,  and  the  doctor  says  that  he  cannot 
last  much  longer.  Ten  years  have  I  been  his  slave — ten 
years  have  I  been  engaged  to  be  married  to  Sergeant-Major 
O'Callaghan  of  the  Blues — ten  years  has  he  kept  me  waiting 
at  the  porch  of  Hymen, — and  what  thousands  of  couples 
have  I  seen  enter  during  the  time !  Oh  dear !  it's  enough 
to  drive  a  widow  mad.  I  think  I  have  managed  it ; — he 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

has  now  quarrelled  with  all  his  relations,  and  Dr.  Gumarabic 
intends  this  day  to  suggest  the  propriety  of  his  making 
his  last  will  and  testament.  [Mr.  CADAVEROUS,  still  asleep, 
coughs.]  He  is  waking.  (Looks  at  him.}  No,  he  is  not. 
Well,  then,  I  shall  wake  him,  and  give  him  a  draught,  for, 
after  such  a  comfortable  sleep  as  he  is  now  in,  he  might 
last  a  whole  week  longer.  (Goes  up  to  Mr.  CADAVEROUS, 
and  shakes  him.') 

Mr.  CAD.  (starting  up).  Ugh!  ugh!  ugh!  (Couglis  violently.) 
Oh  !  Mrs.  Jelly  bags,  I'm  so  ill.  Ugh  !  ugh  ! 

JEL.  My  dear,  dear  sir !  now  don't  say  so.  I  was  in 
hopes,  after  such  a  nice  long  sleep,  you  would  have  found 
yourself  so  much  better. 

CAD.  Long  sleep !  oh  dear ! — I'm  sure  I've  not  slept  ten 
minutes. 

JEL.  (aside).  I  know  that.  (Aloud.)  Indeed,  my  dear 
sir,  you  are  mistaken,  Time  passes  very  quick  when  we 
are  fast  asleep.  I  have  been  watching  you  and  keeping 
the  flies  off.  But  you  must  now  take  your  draught,  my 
dear  sir,  and  your  pill  first. 

CAD.  What !  more  pills  and  more  draughts !  Why, 
there's  no  end  to  them. 

JEL.  Yes,  there  will  be,  by-and-bye,  my  dear  sir.  You 
know  Dr.  Gumarabic  has  ordered  you  to  take  one  pill  and 
one  draught  every  half  hour. 

CAD.  And  so  I  have — never  missed  one  for  the  last  six 
weeks — woke  up  for  them  day  and  night.  I  feel  very  weak 
— very  weak  indeed  !  Don't  you  think  I  might  eat  some- 
thing, my  dear  Mrs.  Jellybags  ? 

JEL.  Eat,  my  dear  Mr.  Cadaverous ! — how  can  you  ask 
me,  when  you  know  that  Dr.  Gumarabic  says  that  it  would 
be  the  death  of  you  ? 

CAD.  Only  the  wing  of  a  chicken,— or  a  bit  of  the 
breast 

JEL.   Impossible  ! 

CAD.  A  bit  of  dry  toast,  then ;  anything,  my  dear  Mrs. 
Jellybags.  I've  such  a  gnawing.  Ugh  !  ugh  ! 

JEL.  My  dear  sir,  you  would  die  if  you  swallowed  the  least 
thing  that's  nourishing. 

CAD.  I'm  sure  I  shall  die  if  I  do  not.     Well,  then,  a  little 
soup —  I  should  like  that  very  much  indeed. 
222 


ILL-WILL 

JEL.  Soup  !  it  would  be  poison,  my  dear  sir !  No,  no.  You 
must  take  your  pill  and  your  draught. 

CAD.  Oh  dear  !  oh  dear  ! — Forty-eight  pills  and  forty -eight 
draughts  every  twenty-four  hours  ! — not  a  wink  of  sleep  day 
or  night. 

JEL.  (soothingly}.  But  it's  to  make  you  well,  you  know, 
my  dear  Mr.  Cadaverous.  Come,  now,  (Hands  him  a  pill 
and  some  water  in  a  tumbler.} 

CAD.  The  last  one  is  hardly  down  yet ; — I  feel  it  sticking 
half-way.  Ugh  !  ugh  ! 

JEL.  Then,  wash  them  down  at  once.  Come,  now,  'tis  to 
make  you  well,  you  know. 

[CADAVEROUS  takes  the  pill  with  a  wry  face, 
and  coughs  it  up  again.] 

CAD.  Ugh !  ugh  !  There— it's  up  again.  Oh  dear  I  oh 
dear! 

JEL.  You  must  take  it,  my  dear  sir.  Come,  now,  try 
again. 

CAD.  (coughing}.  My  cough  is  so  bad.  (Takes  the  pill.} 
Oh,  my  poor  head  !  Now  I'll  lie  down  again. 

JEL.  Not  yet,  my  dear  Mr.  Cadaverous.  You  must  take 
your  draught ;  it's  to  make  you  well,  you  know, 

CAD.  What !    another    draught  ?     I'm    sure    I    must    have 
twenty  draughts  in  my  inside,  besides  two  boxes  of  pills  ! 
JEL.  Come,  now — it  will  be  down  in  a  minute. 

[CADAVEROUS  takes  the  nine-glass  in  his  hand, 
and  looks  at  it  nith  abhorrence.] 
JEL.  Come,  now. 

[CADAVEROUS  swallows  the  draught,  and  feels  very  sick, 
puts  his  handkerchief  to  his  mouth,  and,  after  a  time, 
sinks  back  in  the  chair  quite  exhausted,  and  shuts  his 
eyes.] 

JEL.  (aside}.  I  wish  the  doctor  would  come.  It's  high 
time  that  he  made  his  will. 

CAD.   (drawing  up  his  leg}.     Oh  !  oh  1  oh  ! 
JEL.  What's  the  matter,  my  dear  Mr.  Cadaverous. 
CAD.   Oh,  such  pain  ! — oh,  rub  it,  Mrs.  Jelly  bags. 
JEL.  W'hat,  here,  my  dear  sir  ?     (Ruhs  his  knee.} 
CAD.     No,  no  ! — Not  there  ! — Oh,  my  hip  ! 
JEL.  What,  here?   ' (Rubs  his  hip.} 
CAD.  No,  no! — higher — higher!     Oh,  my  side! 
223 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

JEL.  What,  here  ?     (Rubs  his  side.) 

CAD.  No! — lower. 

JEL.  Here?     (Rubbing.) 

CAD.  No  ! — higher ! — Oh,  my  chest ! — my  stomach !  Oh 
dear  ! — oh  dear  ! 

JEL.  Are  you  better  now,  my  dear  sir  ? 

CAD.  Oh  dear !  oh !  I  do  believe  that  I  shall  die  !  I've 
been  a  very  wicked  man,  I'm  afraid. 

JEL.  Don't  say  so,  Mr.  Cadaverous.  Every  one  but  your 
nephews  and  nieces  say  that  you  are  the  best  man  in  the 
world. 

CAD.  Do  they  ?  I  was  afraid  that  I  had  not  been  quite  so 
good  as  they  think  I  am. 

JEL.  I'd  like  to  hear  any  one  say  to  the  contrary.  I'd  tear 
their  eyes  out — that  I  would. 

CAD.  You  are  a  good  woman,  Mrs.  Jellybags  ;  and  I  shall 
not  forget  you  in  my  will. 

JEL.  Don't  mention  wills,  my  dear  sir.  You  make  me  so 
miserable.  (Puts  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes.) 

CAD.  Don't  cry,  Mrs.  Jellybags.  I  won't  talk  any  more 
abdiit  it.  (Sinks  back  exhausted.) 

JEL.  (wiping  her  eyes).     Here  comes  Dr.  Gumarabie 

Enter  GUMARABIC. 

GUM.  Good  morning,  Mrs.  Jellybags.  Well,  how's  our 
patient  ?— better  ?— heh  ? 

[Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  shakes  her  head.] 

GUM.  No :  well,  that's  odd.  (Goes  up  to  Mr.  CADAVEROUS.) 
Not  better,  my  dear  sir  ? — don't  you  feel  stronger  ? 

CAD.  (faintly.)     Oh  no! 

GUM.  Not  stronger  !  Let  us  feel  the  pulse.  [Mrs.  JELLY- 
BAGS  hands  a  chair,  and  GUMARABIC  sits  donm,  pulls  out  his 
watch,  and  counts.]  Intermittent — 135 — well,  now — that's  very 
odd  !  Mrs.  Jellybags,  have  you  adhered  punctually  to  my 
prescriptions  ? 

JEL.  Oh  yes,  sir,  exactly. 

GUM.   He  has  eaten  nothing? 

CAD.  Nothing  at  all. 

GUM.  And  don't  feel  stronger  ?     Odd — very  odd  !     Pray, 
has  he  had  anything  in  the  way  of  drink  ?     Come,  Mrs.  Jelly- 
224 


ILL-WILL 

bags,  no  disguise — tell   the  truth  ; — no  soup — warm  jelly — 
heh? 

JEL.  No,  sir ;  upon  my  word,  he  has  had  nothing. 

GUM.  Humph! — and  yet  feels  no  stronger?  Well  that's 
odd  ! — Has  he  taken  the  pill  every  half-hour  ? 

JEL.  Yes,  sir,  regularly. 

GUM.  And  feels  110  better !  Are  you  sure  that  he  has  had 
his  draught  with  his  pill  ? 

JEL.  Every  time,  sir. 

GUM.  And  feels  no  better  !  Well,  that's  odd  ! — very  odd, 
indeed  !  (Rises  and  conies  forward  with  Mrs.  JELLYBAGS.) 
We  must  throw  in  some  more  draughts,  Mrs.  Jellybags ; 
there  is  no  time  to  be  lost. 

JEL.  I  am  afraid  he's  much  worse,  sir. 

GUM.  I  am  not  at  all  afraid  of  it,  Mrs.  Jellybags— I  am 
sure  of  it ; — it's  very  odd — but  the  fact  is,  that  all  the 
physic  in  the  world  won't  save  him  ;  but  still  he  must  take 
it — because — physic  was  made  to  be  taken. 

JEL.  Very  true,  sir.     (Whispers  to  GUMARABIC.) 

GUM.  Ah  !  yes  ; — very  proper.  (Going  to  Mr.  CADAVEROUS.) 
My  dear  sir,  I  have  done  my  best ;  nevertheless,  you  are  ill, 
— very  ill — which  is  odd — very  odd  !  It  is  not  pleasant — 
I  may  say,  very  unpleasant — but  if  you  have  any  little 
worldly  affairs  to  settle — will  to  make — or  a  codicil  to  add 
in  favour  of  your  good  nurse,  your  doctor,  or  so  on — it  might 
be  as  well  to  send  for  your  lawyer ;— there  is  no  saying, 
but,  during  my  practice,  I  have  sometimes  found  that  people 
die.  After  all  the  physic  you  have  taken,  it  certainly  is 
odd — very  odd — very  odd  indeed  : — but  you  might  die  to- 
morrow. 

CAD.  Oh  dear  ! — I'm  very  ill. 

JEL.  (sobbing).     Oh  dear  !  oh  dear  ! — he's  very  ill. 

GUM.  (comes  forward  shrugging  up  his  shoulders].  Yes ;  he 
is  ill — very  ill; — to-morrow,  dead  as  mutton  !  At  all  events, 
he  has  not  died  for  WANT  of  physic.  We  must  throw  in  some 
more  draughts  immediately ; — no  time  to  be  lost.  Life  is 
short — but  my  bill  will  be  long — very  long  ! 

[Exit  as  scene  closes. 


225 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

ACT  II. 

SCENE  I. — Enter  CLEMENTINA,  mth  a  letter  in  her  hand. 

CLEM.  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  my  dear  Edward  : 
he  knows  of  my  uncle's  danger,  and  is  anxious  to  see  me.  I 
expect  him  immediately.  I  hope  he  will  not  be  seen  by 
Mrs.  Jellybags  as  he  comes  in,  for  she  would  try  to  make 
more  mischief  than  she  has  already.  Dear  Edward !  how 
he  loves  me  !  (Kisses  the  letter.) 

Enter  EDWARD. 

EDW.  My  lovely,  my  beautiful,  my  adored  Clementina! 
I  have  called  upon  Mr.  Gumarabic,  who  tells  me  that  your 
uncle  cannot  live  through  the  twenty-four  hours,  and  I  have 
flown  here,  my  sweetest,  dearest,  to — to 

CLEM.  To  see  me,  Edward;  surely  there  needs  no  excuse 
for  coming  ? 

EDW.  To  reiterate  my  ardent,  pure,  and  unchangeable 
affection,  my  dearest  Clementina :  to  assure  you,  that  in 
sickness  or  in  health,  for  richer  or  for  poorer,  for  better  or 
for  worse,  as  they  say  in  the  marriage  ceremony,  I  am  yours 
till  death  shall  part  us. 

CLEM.  I  accept  the  vow,  dearest  Edward.  You  know  too 
well  my  heart  for  me  to  say  more. 

EDW.  I  do  know  your  heart,  Clementina,  as  it  is — nor  do 
I  think  it  possible  that  you  could  change ;  still,  sometimes — 
that  is,  for  a  moment  when  I  call  to  mind  that,  by  your 
uncle's  death,  as  his  favourite  niece,  living  with  him  for  so 
many  years,  you  may  soon  find  yourself  in  possession  of 
thousands— and  that  titled  men  may  lay  their  coronets  at 
your  feet — then,  Clementina 

CLEM.  Ungenerous  and  unkind  ! — Edward,  I  almost  hate 
you.  Is  a  little  money,  then,  to  sway  my  affections  ?  Shame, 
Edward,  shame  on  you  !  Is  such  your  opinion  of  my  con- 
stancy ?  (Weeps.)  You  must  judge  me  by  your  own  heart. 

EDW.  Clementina!  dearest  Clementina! — I  did! — but  rather 
— that  is — I  was  not  in  earnest ; — but  when  we  value  any 
226 


ILL-WILL 

object  as  I  value  you,  it  may  be  forgiven,  if  I  feel  at  times 
a  little  jealous  ;  yes,  dearest,  jealous  ! 

CLEM.  Twas  jealousy,  then,  Edward,  which  made  you  so 
unkind.  Well,  then,  I  can  forgive  that. 

EDW.  Nothing  but  jealousy,  dearest !  I  cannot  help  at 
times  representing  you  surrounded  by  noble  admirers — all 
of  them  suing  to  you — not  for  yourself,  but  for  your  money, 
tempting  you  with  their  rank ; — and  it  makes  me  jealous, 
horribly  jealous  !  I  cannot  compete  with  lords,  Clementina 
— a  poor  barrister  without  a  brief. 

CLEM.  I  have  loved  you  for  yourself,  Edward.  I  trust  you 
have  done  the  same  toward  me. 

EDW.   Yes  ;  upon  my  soul,  my  Clementina  ! 

CLEM.  Then  my  uncle's  disposition  of  his  property 
will  make  no  difference  in  me.  For  your  sake,  my  dear 
Edward,  I  hope  he  will  not  forget  me.  What's  that  ?  Mrs. 
Jellybags  is  coming  out  of  the  room.  Haste,  Edward  ; — 
you  must  not  be  seen  here.  Away,  dearest  !— and  may 
God  bless  you. 

EDW.  (kisses  her  hand).  Heaven  preserve  my  adored,  my 
matchless,  ever-to-be-loved  Clementina.  [Exeunt  separately. 


SCENE  II. — The  sick-room — Mr.  CADAVEROUS,  lying  on  a  sofa- 
bed — Mr.  SEEDY,  the  lawyer,  sitting  bi/  his  side;  with  papers 
on  the  table  before  him. 

SEEDY.  I  believe  now,  sir,  that  everything  is  arranged  in 
your  will  according  to  your  instructions.  Shall  I  read  it  over 
again  ?  for  although  signed  and  witnessed,  you  may  make 
any  alteration  you  please  by  a  codicil. 

CAD.  No,  no.  You  have  read  it  twice,  Mr.  Seedy,  and 
you  may  leave  me  now.  I  am  ill,  very  ill,  and  wish  to  be 
alone. 

SEEDY  (Jolds  up  his  papers  and  rises).  I  take  my  leave, 
Mr.  Cadaverous,  trusting  to  be  .long  employed  as  your 
solicitor. 

CAD.  Afraid  not,  Mr.  Seedy.  Lawyers  have  no  great 
interest  in  heaven.  Your  being  my  solicitor  will  not  help 
me  there. 

SEEDY  (coming  forward  as  he  goes  out).  Not  a  sixpence  to 
007 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

his  legal  adviser !     Well,  well !     I  know  how  to  make  out  a 
bill  for  the  executors. 

[Exit  SEEDY,  and  enter  Mrs.  JELLYBAOS. 

JEL.  (with  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes).  Oh  dear  !  oh  dear  ! 
oh,  Mr.  Cadaverous,  how  can  you  fatigue  and  annoy  yourself 
with  such  things  as  wills  ? 

CAD.  (faintly).  Don't  cry,  Mrs.  Jellybags.  I've  not  for- 
gotten you. 

JEL.  (sobbing).  I  can't — help — crying.  And  there's  Miss 
Clementina — now  that  you  are  dying — who  insists  upon 
coming  in  to  see  you. 

CAD.  Clementina,  my  niece,  let  her  come  in,  Mrs.  Jelly- 
bags  ;  I  feel  I'm  going  fast — I  may  as  well  take  leave  of 
everybody. 

JEL.   (sobbing).     Oh  dear !  oh  dear  !     You  may  come  in, 

Enter  CLEMENTINA. 

CLEM.  My  dear  uncle,  why  have  you,  for  so  many  days, 
refused  me  admittance  ?  Every  morning  have  I  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  come  and  nurse  you,  and  for  more  than  three 
weeks  have  received  a  positive  refusal. 

CAD.   Refusal !     Why,  I  never  had  a  message  from  you. 

CLEM.  No  message  !  Every  day  I  have  sent,  and  ever}'  day 
did  Mrs.  Jellybags  reply  that  you  would  not  see  me. 

CAD.  (faintly).   Mrs.  Jellybags — Mrs.  Jellybags 

CLEM.  Yes,  uncle  ;  it  is  true  as  I  stand  here  ;  and  my 
brother  Thomas  has  called  almost  every  day,  and  John 
every  Sunday,  the  only  day  he  can  leave  the  banking- 
house  ;  and  cousins  William  and  James  have  both  been  here 
very  often. 

CAD.  Nobody  told  me  !  I  thought  every  one  had  forgotten 
me.  Why  was  I  not  informed,  Mrs.  Jellybags? 

JEL.  (in  a  rage).  Why,  you  little,  story-telling  creature, 
coming  here  to  impose  upon  your  good  uncle !  You  know 
that  no  one  has  been  here — not  a  soul ; — and  as  for  yourself, 
you  have  been  too  busy  looking  after  a  certain  gentleman 
ever  to  think  of  your  poor  uncle  ; — that  you  have ; — taking 
advantage  of  his  illness  to  behave  in  so  indecorous  a  manner. 
I  would  have  told  him  everything,  but  I  was  afraid  of  making 
him  worse. 

228 


ILL-WILL 

CLEM.  You  are  a  false,  wicked  woman ! 

JEL.  Little  impudent  creature — trying  to  make  mischiet 
between  me  and  my  kind  master,  but  it  won't  do.  (To 
CLEMENTINA,  aside).  The  will  is  signed,  and  I'll  take  care  he 
does  not  alter  it ; — so  do  your  worst. 

CAD.  (faintly).     Give  me  the  mixture,  Mrs. 

CLEM.  I  will,  dear  uncle.  (Pours  out  the  restorative  mixture 
in  a  glass.) 

JEL.  (going  back).     You  will,  Miss — indeed  !  but  you  shan't. 

CLEM.  Be  quiet,  Mrs.  Jellybags; — allow  me  at  least  to  do 
something  for  my  poor  uncle. 

CAD.  Give  me  the  mix — 

JEL.  (prevents  CLEMENTINA  from  giving  it,  and  tries  to  take  it 
from  her).  You  shan't,  Miss  1  —You  never  shall. 

CAD.  Give  me  the — 

[Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  and  CLEMENTINA  saiffle,  at  last 
CLEMENTINA  throws  the  contents  of  the  glass  into 
Mrs.  JELLYBAGS'  face. 

CLEM.  There,  then  ! — since  you  will  have  it. 

JEL.  (in  a  rage).  You  little  minx  ! — I'll  be  revenged  for 
that  Wait  a  little,  till  the  will  is  read— that's  all ;— see  if  I 
don't  bundle  you  out  of  doors — that  I  will. 

CLEM.  As  you  please,  Mrs.  Jellybags ;  but  pray  give  my 
poor  uncle  his  restorative  mixture. 

JEL.  To  please  you  ?  Not  I  !  I'll  not  give  him  a  drop  till 
I  think  proper.  Little,  infamous,  good-for-nothing — 

CAD.  Give  me oh  ! 

JEL.  Saucy — man-seeking 

CLEM.  Oh  !  as  for  that,  Mrs.  Jellybags,  the  big  sergeant 
was  here  last  night — I  know  that.  Talk  of  men,  indeed  ! 

JEL.  Very  well,  Miss  ! — very  well  !  Stop  till  the  breath 
is  out  of  your  uncle's  body — and  I'll  beat  you  till  yours  is 
also. 

CAD.  Give oh! 

CLEM.  My  poor  uncle  !  He  will  have  no  help  till  I  leave 
the  room — I  must  go.  Infamous  woman  !  [Exit. 

CAD.  Oh! 

JEL.  I'm  in  such  a  rage  ! — I  could  tear  her  to  pieces  ! — the 

little  !— the  gnat !     Oh,  I'll  be  revenged  !     Stop  till  the  will 

is  read,  and  then  I'll  turn  her  out  into  the  streets  to  starve. 

Yes  !  yes  !  the  will ! — the  will  !     (Pauses  and  pants  for  breath.) 

229 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

Now  I  recollect,  the  old  fellow  called  for  his  mixture.  I 
must  go  and  get  some  more.  I'll  teach  her  to  throw  physic 
in  my  face.  \Goea  out  and  returns  with  a  phial — pours  out  a 

portion,  and  goes  up  to  Mr.  CADAVEROUS. 
JEL.  Here,  my  dear  Mr.  Cadaverous.  Mercy  on  me  ! — 
Mr.  Cadaverous  !  —  why,  he's  fainted  !  —  Mr.  Cadaverous  ! 
(Screams.)  Lord  help  us  ! — why,  he's  dead !  Well  now, 
this  sort  of  thing  does  give  one  a  shock,  even  when  one 
has  longed  for  it.  Yes,  he's  quite  dead !  (Coming  for- 
ward.} So,  there's  an  end  of  all  his  troubles — and,  thank 
Heaven !  of  mine  also.  Now  for  Sergeant-major  O'Cal- 
laghan,  and — love  !  Now  for  Miss  Clementina,  and — re- 
venge !  But  first  the  will ! — the  will ! 

[Curtain  drops.] 


ACT  III. 

Mrs.  JELLYBAOS. 

Oh  dear! — this  is  a  very  long  morning.  I  feel  such  sus- 
pense— such  anxiety  ;  and  poor  Sergeant-major  O'Callaghaa 
is  quite  in  a  perspiration !  He  is  drinking  and  smoking 
down  in  the  kitchen  to  pass  away  the  time,  and  if  the 
lawyer  don't  come  soon,  the  dear  man  will  be  quite  fuddled. 
He  talks  of  buying  a  farm  in  the  country.  Well,  we  shall 
see ;  but  if  the  sergeant  thinks  that  he  will  make  ducks  and 
drakes  of  my  money,  he  is  mistaken.  I  have  not  been  three 
times  a  widow  for  nothing — I  will  have  it  all  settled  upon 
myself;  that  must  and  shall  be,  or  else — no  Sergeant  O'Cal- 
laghan  for  me  | 

Enter  CLEMENTINA. 

So,  here  you  are,  Miss.  Well,  we'll  wait  till  the  will  is 
read,  and  then  we  shall  see  who  is  mistress  here. 

CLEM.  I  am  as  anxious  as  you,  Mrs.  Jellybags.  You  may 
have  wheedled  my  poor  uncle  to  make  up  the  will  in  your 
favour ;  if  so,  depend  upon  it,  I  shall  expect  nothing  from 
your  hands, 

230 


ILL-WILL 

JEL.  I  should  rather  think  not,  Miss.  If  I  recollect  right, 
you  threw  the  carminative  mixture  in  my  face. 

CLEM.  And  made  you  blush  for  the  first  time  in  vour 
life. 

JEL.  I  shall  not  blush  to  slam  the  door  in  your  face. 

CLEM.  Rather  than  be  indebted  to  you,  I  would  beg  my 
bread  from  door  to  door. 

JEL.  I  expect  that  you  very  soon  will. 

Enter  EDWARD. 

EDW.  My  dearest  Clementina,  I  have  come  to  support  you 
on  this  trying  occasion. 

JEL.  And  ascertain  how  matters  stand,  before  you  decide 
upon  marrying,  I  presume,  Mr.  Edward. 

EDW.   Madam,  I  am  above  all  pecuniary  considerations. 

JEL.  So  everybody  says  when  they  think  themselves  sure 
of  money. 

EDW.  You  judge  of  others  by  yourself. 

JEL.  Perhaps  I  do — I  certainly  do  expect  to  be  rewarded 
for  my  long  and  faithful  services. 

CLEM.  Do  not  waste  words  upon  her,  my  dear.  You  have 
my  solemn  promise ;  nothing  shall  change  my  feelings  to- 
wards you. 

JEL.  That  may  be ;  but  did  it  never  occur  to  you,  Miss, 
that  the  gentleman's  feelings  might  alter  ? 

EDW.   Detestable  wretch  ! 

[Hands  CLEMENTINA  to  a  chair  on  the  right,  and  sils  by  her. 

Enter  Nephews  JOHN,  THOMAS,  WILLIAM,  and  JAMES,  all  nith 
white  pocket-handkerchief s  in  their  hands — they  take  their  seats, 
two  right  and  two  left. 

JEL.  (aside).  Here  they  all  come,  like  crows  that  smell 
carrion.  How  odious  is  the  selfishness  of  this  world  !  But 
here  is  Mr.  Gumarabic.  How  do  you  do,  sir  ?  (Curtseys  with 
a  grave  air.) 

GUM.  Very  well,  I  thank  you,  Mrs.  Jellybags.     Can't  say 

the   same  of  all  my  patients.     Just  happened  to  pass  by — 

thought  I  would  step  in  and  hear  the  will  read — odd,  that 

|  should  pop  in  at  the  time — very  odd.     Pray,  may  I  ask^ 

231 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

my  dear  Mrs.  Jellybags,  were  you  present  at  the  making  of 
the  will  ? 

JEL.  No,  my  dear  sir  ;  my  nerves  would  not  permit  me. 

GUM.  Nerves  ! — odd,  very  odd  !  Then  you  don't  know 
how  things  are  settled  ? 

JEL.  No  more  than  the  man  in  the  moon,  my  dear  sir. 

GUM.  Man  in  the  moon ! — odd  comparison  that  from  a 
woman  ! — very  odd !  Hope  my  chance  won't  prove  all 
moonshine. 

JEL.  I  should  think  not,  my  dear  sir ;  but  here  comes 
Mr.  Seedy,  and  we  shall  know  all  about  it. 

Enter  Mr.  SEEDY — Mrs.  JELLYBAGS,  all  courtesy,  waves  her 
hand  to  a  chair  in  the  centre,  with  a  table  before  it.  Mr.  SEEDY 
sits  down,  pulls  the  will  out  of  hi<i  pocket,  lays  it  on  the  table, 
takes  out  his  sniiff-box,  takes  a  pinch,  then  his  handkerchief', 
blows  his  nose,  snuff's  the  candles,  takes  his  spectacles  from 
his  waistcoat  pocket,  puts  them  on,  breaks  the  seals,  and  bows 
to  the  company  :  Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  has  taken  her  seat  on  tlie 
left  next  to  him,  and  Dr.  GUMARABIC  by  her  side.  Mrs. 
JELLYBAGS  sobs  very  loud,  with  her  handkerchief  to  her  face. 

SEEDY.  Silence,  if  you  please. 

[Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  stops  sobbing  immediately. 

EDW.  (putting  his  arm  round  CLEMENTINAS  waist).  My 
dearest  Clementina  ! 

Mr.  SEEDY  hems  twice,  and  then  reads — 

"  The  last  Will  and  Testament  of  Christopher  Cadaverous, 
Gentleman,  of  Copse  Horton,  in  the  County  of  Cumberland. 

"  I,  Christopher  Cadaverous,  being  at  this  time  in  sound 
mind,  do  hereby  make  my  last  will  and  testament. 

"First,  I  pray  that  I  may  be  forgiven  all  my  manifold  sins 
and  wickedness,  and  I  do  beg  forgiveness  of  all  those  whom 
I  may  have  injured  unintentionally  or  otherwise  ;  and  at  the 
same  time  do  pardon  all  those  who  may  have  done  me 
wrong,  even  to  John  Jones,  the  turnpike  man,  who  unjustly 
made  me  pay  the  threepenny  toll  twice  over  on  Easter  last, 
when  I  went  up  to  receive  my  dividends. 

"  My    property,    personal     and    real,    I     devise    to    my 
two    friends,    Solomon    Lazarus,   residing   at    No.    3    Lower 
Thames    Street,   and    Hezekiah    Flint,   residing   at   No.    l6 
232 


ILL-WILL 

Lothbury,  to  have  and  to  hold  for  the  following  uses  and 
purposes : — 

"  First,  to  my  dearly  beloved  niece,  Clementina  Montagu, 
I  leave  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  3^  per 
cent.  Consols,  for  her  sole  use  and  benefit,  to  be  made  over 
to  her,  both  principal  and  interest,  on  the  day  of  her 
marriage. 

[EDWARD  withdraws  his  arm  from  CLEMENTINA'S  traist — 
turns  half  round  from  her,  and  Jails  back  in  Jus 
chair  with  a  pish  ! 

"To  my  nephew,  Thomas  Montagu,  I  leave  the  sum  of 
nineteen  pounds  nineteen  shillings  and  sixpence — having 
deducted  the  other  sixpence  to  avoid  the  legacy  duty. 

[THOMAS  turns  from  the  lawyer  with  his  face  to 
the  front  of  the  stage,  crossing  his  legs. 

"To  my  nephew,  John  Montagu,  I  leave  also  the  sum  of 
nineteen  pounds  .nineteen  shillings  and  sixpence. 

[JoHN  turns  awaij  in  the  same  manner. 

"To  my  nephew,  once  removed,  James  Stirling,  I  leave  the 
sum  of  five  pounds  to  purchase  a  suit  of  mourning. 

[JAMES  turns  away  as  tlic  others. 

"  To  my  nephew,  once  removed,  William  Stirling,  I  also 
leave  the  sum  of  five  pounds  to  purchase  a  suit  of  mourning. 

[WILLIAM  turns  awai)  as  tlic  others. 
"To  my  kind  and  affectionate  housekeeper,  Mrs.    Martha 

Jellybags "  [Mrs.  JELLVDAGS  sobs  loudly,  and  crhs 

"  Oh  dear!  'Oh  dear!" 

Mr.  SEEDY.   Silence,  if  you  please.  [Reads. 

— "  In  return  for  all  her  attention  to  me  during  my  illness, 
and  her  ten  years'  service,  I  leave  the  whole  of  my — 

[Mr.  SEEDY  having  come  to  the  bottom  of  the  page  lays 
down  the  will,  takes  out  ///.v  snufl'-hojc,  takes  a  pinch, 
blows  his  ncse,  snufls  the  candles,  and  proceeds. 
— '•'  I  leave  the  whole  of  my  wardrobe,  for  her  entire  use  and 
disposal ;  and  also  my  silver  watch,  with   my  key  and  seal 
hanging  to  it. 

"  And  having  thus  provided  for 

[Mrs.  JELLYBAGS,  who  has  been  listening  attentively, 
interrupts  Mr.  SEEDY  in  great  agitation. 
JEL.  Will  you  be  pleased  to  read  that  part  over  again  ? 
SEEDY.  Certainly,  ma'am.     "  I  leave  the  whole  of  my  ward- 
233 


OLLA    PODRIDA 

robe,  and  also  my  silver  watch,  with  the  key  and  seal  hanging 

to  it.  [Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  screams,  and  Jails  back  in  a 

swoon  on  her  chair — no  one  assists  her, 

"  And  having  thus  provided  for  all  my  relations,  I  do 
hereby  devise  the  rest  of  my  property  to  the  said  Solomon 
Lazarus  and  Hezekiah  Flint,  to  have  and  to  hold  for  the 
building  and  endowment  of  an  hospital  for  diseases  of  the 
heart,  lights,  liver,  and  spleen,  as  set  off  by  the  provisions 
in  the  schedule  annexed  to  my  will  as  part  and  codicil 
to  it." 

SEEDY.  Would  the  relations  like  me  to  read  the  provisions? 

OMNES.  No  !  no  !  no  ! 

(Mr.  SEEDY  is  alwut  to  fold  up  the  papers.) 

GUM.   I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  but  is  there  no  other  codicil  ? 

SEEDY.  I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Gumarabic,  I  recollect  now 
there  is  one  relative  to  you. 

GUM.  (nods  his  head).     I  thought  so. 

(SEEDY  reads.) 

"  And  whereas  I  consider  that  my  apothecary,  Mr.  Haustus 
Gumarubic,  hath  sent  in  much  unnecessary  physic  during  my 
long  illness — it  is  my  earnest  request  that  my  executors  will 
not  fail  to  tax  his  bill." 

GUM.  (rises  and  comes  forward}.  Tax  my  bill ! — well,  that 
is  odd,  very  odd !  I  may  as  well  go  and  look  after  my 
patients.  [Exit. 

(JAMES  and  WILLIAM  come  forward?) 

JAMES.   I  say,  Bill,  how  are  you  off  for  a  suit  of  mourning  ? 

WILL.  Thanky  for  nothing,  Jem.  If  the  old  gentleman 
don't  go  to  heaven  until  I  put  it  on,  he  will  be  in  a  very  bad 
way.  Come  along,  it's  no  use  staying  here. 

(JOHN  and  THOMAS  come  forward.} 

JOHN.  I  say,  Tom,  how  are  you  off  for  nineteen  pounds 
nineteen  and  six  ?  Heh  ! 

THOS.  Let's  toss  and  see  which  shall  have  both  legacies. 
Here  goes — heads  or  tails  ? 

JOHN.  Woman  for  ever. 

234 


ILL-WILL 

THOS.  You've  won,  so  there's  an  end  of  not  only  my  ex- 
pectations but  realities.  Come  along,  Mrs.  Jellybags  must 
be  anxious  to  look  over  her  wardrobe. 

JOHN.  Yes,  and  also  the  silver  watch  and  the  key  and  seal 
hanging  to  it.  Good-bye,  Jemmy  !  Ha  !  ha  !  [Exeunt,  laughing. 

CLEM.  For  shame,  John.  (Turns  to  EDWARD).  My  dear 
Edward,  do  not  appear  so  downcast.  I  acknowledge  that  I 
am  myself  much  mortified  and  disappointed — but  we  must 
submit  to  circumstances.  What  did  I  tell  you  before  this 
will  was  read  ? — that  nothing  could  alter  my  feelings  towards 
you,  did  I  not  ? 

EDW.  (with  indifference).     Yes. 

CLEM.  Why  then  annoy  yourself,  my  dear  Edward  ? 

EDW.  The  confounded  old  junks  ! 

CLEM.  Nay,  Edward,  recollect  that  he  is  dead — I  can 
forgive  him. 

EDW.  But  I  won't.  Has  he  not  dashed  my  cup  of  bliss  to 
the  ground  ?  Heavens  !  what  delightful  anticipations  I  had 
formed  of  possessing  you  and  competence — all  gone  ! 

CLEM.  All  gone,  dear  Edward  ? 

[Mrs.  JELLYBAGS,  who  has  been  sitting  very  si  ill,  takes 
her  handkerchief  from  her  eyes  and  listens. 

EDW.  Yes,  gone  ! — gone  for  ever !  Do  you  imagine,  my 
ever  dear  Clementina,  that  I  would  be  so  base,  so  cruel,  so 
regardless  of  you  and  your  welfare,  as  to  entrap  you  into 
marriage  with  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds !  No, 
no  ! — judge  me  better.  I  sacrifice  myself — my  happiness — 
all  for  you!  —  banish  myself  from  your  dear  presence,  and 
retire  to  pass  the  remainder  of  my  existence  in  misery  and 
regret,  maddened  with  the  feeling  that  some  happier  mortal 
will  obtain  that  dear  hand,  and  will  rejoice  in  the  possession 
of  those  charms  which  I  had  too  fondly,  too  credulously, 
imagined  as  certain  to  be  mine. 

[Takes  out  his  handkerchief,  and  covers  his  face  ;  CLEMEN- 
TINA also  puts  her  handkerchief  to  her  face  and 
weeps.  Mrs.  JELLYBAGS  nods  her  head  ironically. 

CLEM.  Edward! 

EDW.  My  dear,  dear  Clementina ! 

CLEM.  You  won't  have  me  ? 

EDW.   My  honour  forbids  it.     If  you  knew  my  feelings — • 
how  this  poor  heart  is  racked  ! 
235 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

CLEM.  Don't  leave  me,  Edward.  Did  you  not  say  that 
for  richer  or  for  poorer,  for  better  or  for  worse,  you  would 
be  mine,  till  death  did  us  part  ? 

EDW.  Did  I  ? 

CLEM.  You  know  you  did,  Edward. 

EDW.  It's  astonishing  how  much  nonsense  we  talk  when 
in  love.  My  dearest  Clementina,  let  us  be  rational.  We  are 
almost  without  a  sixpence.  There  is  an  old  adage,  that 
when  poverty  comes  in  at  the  door,  love  flies  out  of  the 
window.  Shall  I  then  make  you  miserable  !  No !  no ! 
Hear  me,  Clementina.  I  will  be  generous.  I  now  absolve 
you  from  all  your  vows.  You  are  free.  Should  the  time 
ever  come  that  prosperity  shine  upon  me,  and  I  find  that  I 
have  sufficient  for  both  of  us  of  that  dross  which  I  despise, 
then  will  I  return,  and,  should  my  Clementina  not  have 
entered  into  any  other  engagement,  throw  my  fortune  and 
my  person  at  her  feet.  Till  then,  dearest  Clementina, 
farewell ! 

CLEM,  (sinking  into  a  chair,  sobbing).  Cruel  Edward !  Oh, 
my  heart  will  break  ! 

EDW.  I  can  bear  it  myself  no  longer.  Farewell !  farewell ! 

[Exit. 

JEL.  (coming  forward).  Well,  this  is  some  comfort.  (To 
CLEMENTINA).  Did  I  not  tell  you,  Miss,  that  if  you  did  not 
change  your  mind,  others  might  ? 

CLEM.  Leave  me,  leave  me. 

JEL.  No,  I  shan't ;  I  have  as  good  a  right  here  as  you,  at 
all  events.  I  shall  stay,  Miss. 

CLEM,  (rising).  Stay  then— but  I  shall  not.  O  Edward  I 
Edward !  [Exit,  weepii.g. 

JEL.  (alone).  Well,  I  really  thought  I  should  have  burst 
— to  be  forced  not  to  allow  people  to  suppose  that  I  cared, 
when  I  should  like  to  tear  the  old  wretch  out  of  his  coffin 
to  beat  him.  His  wardrobe  !  If  people  knew  his  wardrobe 
as  well  as  I  do,  who  have  been  patching  at  it  these  last  ten 
years — not  a  shirt  or  a  stocking  that  would  fetch  sixpence  ! 
And  as  for  his  other  garments,  why  a  Jew  would  hardly  put 
them  into  his  bag !  (Crying.)  Oh  dear  !  oh  dear !  After 
all,  I'm  just  like  Miss  Clementina ;  for  Sergeant  O'Callaghan, 
when  he  knows  all  this,  will  as  surely  walk  off  without  beat 
of  drum  as  did  Mr.  Edward— and  that  too  with  all  the 
236 


I  looked  round  :  it  was  a  female." 


ILL-WILL 

money  I  have  lent  him.  Oh,  these  men  !  these  men ! — • 
whether  they  are  living  or  dying  there  is  nothing  in  them 
but  treachery  and  disappointment !  When  they  pretend  to 
he  in  love,  they  only  are  trying  for  your  money  ;  and  e'en 
when  they  make  their  wills,  they  leave  to  those  behind 
them  nothing  but  ill  will  ! 

\Exit,  crying,  off'  the  stage  as  the  curtain  falls. 


THE   SKY-BLUE   DOMINO 


J.T  was  a  fine  autumnal  evening ;  I  had  been  walking  with 
a  friend  until  dusk  on  the  Piazza  Grande,  or  principal 
square  in  the  town  of  Lucca.  We  had  been  conversing  of 
England,  our  own  country,  from  which  I  had  then  .banished 
myself  for  nearly  four  years,  having  taken  up  my  residence 
in  Italy  to  fortify  a  weak  constitution,  and  having  remained 
there  long  after  it  was  requisite  for  my  health  from  an 
attachment  to  its  pure  sky,  and  the  dolce  for  niente  which 
so  wins  upon  you  in  that  luxurious  climate.  We  had  com- 
municated to  each  other  the  contents  of  our  respective 
letters  arrived  by  the  last  mail ;  had  talked  over  politics, 
great  men,  acquaintances,  friends,  and  kindred  ;  and,  tired 
of  conversation,  had  both  sunk  into  a  pleasing  reverie  as  we 
watched  the  stars  twinkling  above  us,  when  my  friend  rose 
hastily  and  bid  me  good  night. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Albert  ?  "  inquired  I. 

"  I  had  nearly  forgotten  I  had  an  appointment  this 
evening.  I  promised  to  meet  somebody  at  the  Marquesa 
di  Cesto's  masquerade." 

"  Pshaw  !  are  you  not  tired  of  these  things  ?  "  replied  I ; 
"that  eternal  round  of  black  masks  and  dominos  of  all 
colours ;  heavy  harlequins,  fools  and  clowns  by  nature  wear- 
ing their  proper  dresses  there,  and  only  in  masquerade 
when  out  of  it ;  nuns  who  have  no  holiness  in  their  ideas, 
friars  without  a  spice  of  religion,  ugly  Venuses,  Dianas 
without  chastity,  and  Hebes  as  old  as  your  grandmother." 

"All    very   true,   Herbert,   and    life    itself  is    masquerade 
enough  ;   but  the  fact  is  that  I  have  an  appointment :  it  is 
of  importance,  and  I  must  not  fail." 
'    "Well,  I  wish  you  more   amusement   than  I  have  gene- 


THE  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO 

rally  extracted  from  these  burlesque  meetings/'  replied  I. 
"  Adieu,  and  may  you  be  successful ! "  And  Albert  hastened 
away. 

I  remained  another  half-hour  reclining  on  the  bench,  and 
then  returned  to  my  lodgings.  My  servant  Antonio  lighted 
the  candle  and  withdrew.  On  the  table  lay  a  note  ;  it  was 
an  invitation  from  the  Marquesa.  I  threw  it  on  one  side 
and  took  up  a  book,  one  that  required  reflection  and  deep 
examination  ;  but  the  rattling  of  the  wheels  of  the  carriages 
as  they  whirled  along  past  my  window  would  not  permit  me  to 
command  my  attention.  .  I  threw  down  the  book  ;  and  taking 
a  chair  at  the  window,  watched  the  carriages  full  of  masks  as 
they  rolled  past,  apparently  so  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure. 
I  was  in  a  cynical  humour.  What  fools,  thought  I,  and  yet 
what  numbers  will  be  there  !  there  will  be  an  immense 
crowd  ;  and  what  can  be  the  assignation  which  Albert  said 
was  of  such  consequence  ?  Such  was  my  reflection  for  the 
next  ten  minutes,  during  which  at  least  fifty  carriages  and 
other  vehicles  had  passed  in  review  before  me. 

And  then  I  thought  of  the  princely  fortune  of  the  Mar- 
quesa, the  splendid  palazzo  at  which  the  masquerade  was 
given,  and  the  brilliant  scene  which  would  take  place. 

"  The  Grand  Duke  is  to  be  there,  and  everybody  of  distinc- 
tion in  Lucca.  I  have  a  great  mind  to  go  myself." 

A  few  minutes  more  elapsed.  I  felt  that  I  was  lonely, 
and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  go.  I  turned  from 
the  window  and  rang  the  bell. 

"  Antonio,  see  if  you  can  procure  me  a  domino,  a  dark- 
coloured  one,  if  possible ;  and  tell  Carlo  to  bring  the  carriage 
round  as  soon  as  he  can." 

Antonio  departed,  and  was  away  so  long  that  the  carriage 
was  at  the  door  previous  to  his  return. 

"  Signor,  I  am  sorry,  very,  very  sorry ;  but  I  have  run  to 
every  shop  in  Lucca,  and  there  is  nothing  left  but  a  sky-blue 
domino,  which  I  have  brought  with  me." 

"  Sky-blue  !  why,  there  will  not  be  two  sky-blue  dominos 
in  the  whole  masquerade  ;  I  might  as  well  tell  my  name 
at  once,  I  shall  be  so  conspicuous." 

"You  are  as  well  hidden  under  a  sky-blue  domino  as  a 
black  one,  Signor,  if  you  choose  to  keep  your  own  secrets^," 
gbserved  Antonio. 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"Very  true,"  replied  I,  "give  me  my  mask." 

Enshrouding  myself  in  the  sky-blue  domino,  I  went  down 
the  stairs,  threw  myself  into  the  carriage,  and  directed  Carlo 
to  drive  to  the  palazzo  of  the  Marquesa. 

In  half-an-hour  we  arrived  at  the  entrance-gates  of  the 
Marquesa's  superb  country  seat.  From  these  gates  to  the 
palazzo,  a  sweep  of  several  hundred  yards,  the  avenues 
through  which  the  driver  passed  was  loaded  with  variegated 
lamps,  hanging  in  graceful  festoons  from  branch  to  branch  ; 
and  the  notes  of  music  from  the  vast  entrance-hall  of  the 
palazzo  floated  through  the  still  air.  When  I  arrived  at 
the  area  in  front  of  the  flight  of  marble  steps  which  formed 
the  entrance  of  the  palazzo,  I  was  astonished  at  the  magni- 
ficence, the  good  taste,  and  the  total  disregard  of  expense 
which  were  exhibited.  The  palazzo  itself  appeared  like 
the  fabric  built  of  diamonds  and  precious  stones  by  the 
genii  who  obeyed  the  ring  and  lamp  of  Aladdin,  so  com- 
pletely was  its  marble  front  hidden  with  a  mass  of  many- 
coloured  lamps,  the  reflection  from  whose  galaxy  of  light 
rendered  it  bright  as  day  for  nearly  one  hundred  yards 
around ;  various  mottoes  and  transparencies  were  arranged 
in  the  walks  nearest  to  the  palazzo ;  and  then  all  was  dark, 
rendered  still  darker  from  the  contrast  with  the  flood  of 
light  which  poured  to  a  certain  distance  from  the  scene  of 
festivity.  Groups  of  characters  and  dominos  were  walking 
to  and  fro  in  every  direction ;  most  of  them  retracing  their 
steps  when  they  arrived  at  the  sombre  walks  and  alleys, 
some  few  pairs  only  continuing  their  route  where  no  listeners 
were  to  be  expected. 

This  is  an  animating  scene,  thought  I,  as  the  carriage 
stopped,  and  I  am  not  sorry  that  I  have  made  one  of  the 
party.  As  soon  as  I  had  descended,  I  walked  up  the  flight 
of  marble  steps  which  led  to  the  spacious  hall  in  which  the 
major  part  of  the  company  were  collected.  The  music  had, 
for  a  moment,  ceased  to  play ;  and  finding  that  the  perfume 
of  the  exotics  which  decorated  the  hall  was  too  powerful,  I 
was  again  descending  the  steps,  when  my  hand  was  seized 
and  warmly  pressed  ly  one  in  a  violet-coloured  domino. 

"  I  am  so  glad  that  you  are  come ;  we  were  afraid  that  you 
would  not.     I  will  see  you  again  directly,"  said  the  domino ; 
»nd  it  then  fell  back  into  the  crowd  and  disappeared. 
240 


THE  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO 

It  immediately  occurred  to  me  that  it  was  my  friend  Albert 
who  spoke  to  me.  "  Very  odd,"  thought  I,  "  that  he  should 
have  found  me  out ! "  And  again  I  fell  into  the  absurdity  of 
imagining  that  because  I  had  put  on  a  conspicuous  domino 
I  was  sure  to  be  recognised.  "What  can  he  want  with  me? 
He  must  be  in  some  difficulty,  some  unexpected  one,  that 
is  certain."  Such  were  my  reflections  as  I  slowly  descended 
the  steps,  occasionally  pausing  for  a  moment  on  one,  as  I 
was  lost  in  conjecture,  when  I  was  again  arrested  by  a  slight 
slap  on  the  shoulder.  I  looked  round :  it  was  a  female  ;  and 
although  she  wore  her  half-mask,  it  was  evident  that  she  was 
young,  and  I  felt  convinced  that  she  was  beautiful. 

"Not  a  word,"  whispered  she,  putting  her  finger  to  her 
lip;  "follow  me."  Of  course  I  followed:  who  could  resist 
such  a  challenge  ? 

"  You  are  late,"  said  the  incognito,  when  we  had  walked 
so  far  away  from  the  palazzo  as  to  be  out  of  hearing  of  the 
crowd. 

"  I  did  not  make  up  my  mind  to  come  until  an  hour  ago," 
replied  I. 

"  I  was  so  afraid  that  you  would  not  come.  Albert  was 
sure  that  you  would.  He  was  right.  He  told  me  just  now 
that  he  had  spoken  to  you." 

"What!  was  that  Albert  in  the  rose-coloured  domino?" 

"  Yes ;  but  I  dare  not  stay  now — my  father  will  be  looking 
for  me.  Albert  is  keeping  him  in  conversation.  In  half-an- 
hour  he  will  speak  to  you  again.  Has  he  explained  to  you 
what  has  occurred  ?  " 

"  Not  one  word." 

"  If  he  has  not  had  time — and  I  doubt  if  he  will  have,  as 
he  must  attend  to  the  preparations— I  will  write  a  few  lines 
if  I  can,  and  explain,  or  at  least  tell  you  what  to  do ;  but  I 
am  so  harassed,  so  frightened  !  We  do  indeed  require  your 
assistance.  Adieu ! "  So  saying,  the  fair  unknown  tripped 
hastily  away. 

"What  the  deuce  is  all  this?"  muttered  I,  as  I  watched 
her  retreating  figure.  "Albert  said  that  he  had  an  appoint- 
ment, but  he  did  not  make  me  his  confidant.  It  appears 
that  something  which  has  occurred  this  night  occasions  him 
to  require  my  assistance.  Well,  I  will  not  fail  him." 

For  about  half-an-hour  I  sauntered  up  and  down  between 
241  <3 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

the  lines  of  orange-trees  which  were  dressed  up  with  varie- 
gated lamps,  and  shed  their  powerful  fragrance  in  the  air; 
I  ruminated  upon  what  might  be  my  friend's  intentions, 
and  what  might  be  the  result  of  an  intrigue  carried  on  in  a 
country  where  the  stiletto  follows  Love  so  close  through  all 
the  mazes  of  his  labyrinth,  when  I  was  again  accosted  by 
the  violet-coloured  domino. 

"  Hist  ! "  whispered  he,  looking  carefully  round  as  he 
thrust  a  paper  into  my  hand ;  "  read  this  after  I  leave  you. 
In  one  hour  from  this  be  you  on  this  spot.  Are  you 
armed  ?  " 

"  No,"  replied  I ;  "  but,  Albert — 

"  You  may  not  need  it ;  but  nevertheless  take  this — I 
cannot  wait."  So  saying,  he  put  a  stiletto  into  my  hand, 
and  again  made  a  hasty  retreat. 

It  had  been  my  intention  to  have  asked  Albert  what  was 
his  plan,  and  farther  why  he  did  not  speak  English  instead 
of  Italian,  as  he  would  have  been  less  liable  to  be  under- 
stood if  overheard  by  eavesdroppers;  but  a  little  reflection 
told  me  that  he  was  right  in  speaking  Italian,  as  the 
English  language  overheard  would  have  betrayed  him,  or 
at  least  have  identified  him  as  a  foreigner. 

"A  very  mysterious  affair  this!"  thought  I;  "but,  how- 
ever, this  paper  will,  I  presume,  explain  the  business.  That 
there  is  danger  in  it  is  evident,  or  he  would  not  have 
given  me  this  weapon;"  and  I  turned  the  stiletto  once 
or  twice  to  the  light  of  the  lamp  next  to  me,  examining 
its  blade,  when,  looking  up,  I  perceived  a  black  domino 
standing  before  me. 

"It  is  sharp  enough,  I  warrant,"  said  the  domino;  "you 
have  but  to  strike  home.  I  have  been  waiting  for  you 
in  the  next  walk,  which  I  thought  was  to  be  our  rendezvous. 
Here  is  a  paper  which  you  will  fasten  to  his  dress.  I  will 
contrive  that  he  shall  be  here  in  an  hour  hence  by  a 
pretended  message.  After  his  death  you  will  put  this 
packet  into  his  bosom ; — you  understand.  Fail  not :  re- 
member the  one  thousand  sequins ;  and  here  is  my  ring, 
which  I  will  redeem  as  soon  as  your  work  is  done.  The 
others  will  soon  be  here.  The  pass-word  is  '  Milano.'  But 
I  must  not  be  seen  here.  Why  a  sky-blue  domino  ?  it  is 
too  conspicuous  for  escape;"  and  as  I  received  from  him 
242 


THE   SKY-BLUE   DOMINO 

the  packet  and  ring,  the  black  domino  retreated  through 
the  orange  grove  which  encircled  us. 

I  was  lost  in  amazement :  there  I  stood  with  my  hands 
full — two  papers,  a  packet,  a  stiletto,  and  a  diamond  ring ! 
"Well,"  thought  I,  "this  time  I  am  most  assuredly  taken 
for  somebody  else — for  a  bravo  I  am  not.  There  is  some 
foul  work  going  on,  which,  perhaps,  I  may  prevent.  '  But 
why  a  sky-blue  domino?'  said  he.  I  may  as  well  ask  the 
same  question.  Why  the  deuce  did  I  come  here  in  a  sky- 
blue  domino,  or  any  domino  at  all?"  I  put  the  ring  on 
rny  finger,  the  stiletto  and  packet  in  my  bosom,  and  then 
hastened  away  to  the  garden  on  the  other  side  of  the 
palazzo,  that  I  might  read  the  mysterious  communication 
put  into  my  hands  by  my  friend  Albert;  and  as  I  walked 
on,  my  love  for  adventure  led  me  away  so  as  to  find  myself 
pleased  with  the  mystery  and  danger  attending  upon  the 
affair ;  and  feeling  secure,  now  that  I  had  a  stiletto  in  my 
bosom  for  my  defence,  I  resolved  that  I  would  go  right 
through  it  until  the  whole  affair  should  be  unravelled. 

I  walked  on  till  I  had  gained  the  last  lamp  on  the  other 
side  of  the  palazzo.  I  held  up  to  its  light  the  mysterious 
paper ;  it  was  in  Italian,  and  in  a  woman's  handwriting. 

"We  have  determined  upon  flight,  as  we  cannot  hope 
for  safety  here,  surrounded  as  we  are  by  stilettos  on 
every  side.  We  feel  sure  of  pardon  as  soon  as  the  papers 
which  Albert  received  by  this  day's  mail,  and  which  he 
will  entrust  to  you  when  you  meet  again,  are  placed  in 
my  father's  hands.  We  must  have  your  assistance  in  re- 
moving our  treasure.  Our  horses  are  all  ready,  and  a 
few  hours  will  put  us  in  safety  ;  but  we  must  look  to  you 
for  following  us  in  your  carriage,  and  conveying  for  me 
what  would  prove  so  great  an  encumbrance  to  our  necessary 
speed.  When  Albert  sees  you  again,  he  will  be  able  to 
tell  you  where  it  is  deposited.  Follow  us  quick,  and  you 
will  always  have  the  gratitude  of  VIOLA. 

"  P.S, — I  write  in  great  haste,  as  I  cannot  leave  my  father's 
Bide  for  a  moment  without  his  seeking  for  me." 

"What  can  all  this  mean?    Albert  told  me  of  no  papers 
243 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

by  this  day's  mail.  Viola!  I  never  heard  him  mention 
such  a  name.  He  said  to  me,  'Read  this,  and  all  will  be 
explained.'  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  am  not  as  much  in  the 
dark  as  ever!  Follow  them  in  my  carriage  with  the 
treasure— never  says  where !  I  presume  he  is  about  to 
run  off  with  some  rich  heiress.  Confound  this  sky-blue 
domino !  Here  I  am  with  two  papers,  a  packet,  a  stiletto, 
and  a  ring;  I  am  to  receive  another  packet,  and  am  to 
convey  treasure.  Well,  it  must  solve  itself— I  will  back 
to  my  post ;  but  first  let  me  see  what  is  in  this  paper  which 
I  am  to  affix  upon  the  man's  dress  after  I  have  killed  him." 
I  held  it  up  to  the  light,  and  read,  in  capital  letters,  "  The 
reward  of  a  traitor!"  "Short  and  pithy,"  muttered  I,  as  I 
replaced  it  in  my  pocket;  "now  I'll  back  to  the  place  of 
assignation,  for  the  hour  must  be  nearly  expired." 

As  I  retraced  my  steps,  I  again  reverted  to  the  communi- 
cation of  Viola — "Surrounded  as  we  are  by  stilettos  on 
every  side  !  "  Why,  surely  Albert  cannot  be  the  person  that 
I  am  required  by  the  black  domino  to  despatch ;  and  yet  it 

may  be  so and  others  are  to  join  me  here  before  the  hour 

is  passed.  A  thought  struck  me :  whoever  the  party  might 
l>e  whose  life  was  to  be  taken,  whether  Albert  or  another,  I 
could  save  him. 

My  reverie  was  again  broken  by  a  tap  or^  the  shoulder. 

"  Am  I  right  ?     What  is  the  pass-word  ?  " 

"  Milano  ! "  replied  I,  in  a  whisper. 

"All's  right,  then — Giacomo  and  Tomaso  are  close  by — 
I  will  fetch  them." 

The  man  turned  away,  and  in  a  minute  reappeared  with 
two  others,  bending  as  they  forced  their  way  under  the 
orange-trees. 

"  Here  we  all  are,  Felippo,"  whispered  the  first.  "  He  is 
to  be  here  in  a  few  minutes." 

"  Hush  ! "  replied  I  in  a  whisper,  and  holding  up  to  them 
the  brilliant  ring  which  sparkled  on  my  finger. 

"  Ah,  Signor,  I  cry  your  mercy,"  replied  the  man  in  a  low 
voice ;  "  I  thought  it  was  Felippo." 

"  Not  so  loud,"  replied  I,  still  in  a  whisper.  "  All  is  dis- 
covered,  and  Felippo  is  arrested.  You  must  away  imme- 
diately. You  shall  hear  from  me  to-morrow." 

«  Corpo  di  Bacco !     Where,  Signor  ?  at  the  old  place  ? " 


THE  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO 

"  Yes ;  away — now,  and  save  yourselves." 
In  a  few  seconds  the  desperate  men  disappeared  among  the 
trees,  and  I  was  left  alone. 

"Slaves  of  the  Ring,  you  have  done  my  bidding,  at  all 
events,  this  time/'  thought  I,  and  I  looked  at  the  ring  more 
attentively.  It  was  a  splendid  solitaire  diamond,  worth 
many  hundred  crowns.  "  Will  you  ever  find  your  way  back 
to  your  lawful  owner?"  was  the  question  in  my  mind  when 
Albert  made  his  appearance  in  his  violet-coloured  domino. 

"  'Twas  imprudent  of  you  to  send  me  the  paper  by  the  black 
domino,"  said  he  hastily.  "Did  I  not  tell  you  that  I  would 
be  here  in  an  hour  ?  We  have  not  a  moment  to  spare. 
Follow  me  quickly,  and  be  silent." 

I  followed — the  paper  which  Albert  referred  to  needed  no 
explanation  ;  it  was,  indeed,  the  only  part  of  the  whole  affair 
which  I  comprehended.  He  led  the  way  to  about  three 
hundred  yards  of  the  path  through  the  wood. 

"  There,"  said  he, "  in  that  narrow  avenue,  you  will  find 
my  faithful  negro  with  his  charge.  He  will  not  deliver  it 
up  without  you  show  him  this  ring."  And  Albert  put  a  ring 
upon  my  finger. 

"  But,  Albert  " — my  mind  misgave  me — Albert  never  had 
a  faithful  negro  to  my  knowledge  ;  it  must  be  some  other 
person  who  had  mistaken  me  for  his  friend — "  I  am  afraid," 
continued  I 

"  Afraid  ! — let  me  not  hear  you  say  that.  You  never  yet 
knew  fear,"  said  he,  interrupting  me.  "  What  have  you  to 
fear  between  this  and  Pisa  ?  Your  own  horses  will  take  you 
there  in  three  hours.  But  here's  the  packet,  which  you  must 
deliver  yourself.  Now  that  you  know  where  the  negro  is, 
return  to  the  palazzo,  deliver  it  into  his  own  hands,  request- 
ing his  immediate  perusal.  After  that  do  not  wait  a  moment, 
but  hasten  here  to  your  charge.  While  the  Grand  Duke  is 
reading  it  I  will  escape  with  Viola." 

"  I  really  cannot  understand  all  this,"  said  I,  taking  the 
packet. 

"All  will  be  explained  when  we  met  at  Pisa.  Away, 
now,  to  the  Grand  Duke.  I  will  go  to  the  negro  and  pre- 
pare him  for  your  coming." 

"But  allow  me " 

£45 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"Not  a  word  more,  if  you  love  me,"  replied  the  violet- 
coloured  domino,  who,  I  was  now  convinced,  was  not  Albert ; 
it  was  not  his  voice — there  was  mystery  and  a  mistake  ;  but 
I  had  become  so  implicated  that  I  felt  I  coidd  not  retreat 
without  sacrificing  the  parties,  whoever  they  might  be. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  as  I  turned  back  to  the  palazzo,  "  I  must 
go  on  now,  for  as  a  gentleman  and  man  of  honour,  I  cannot 
refuse.  I  will  give  the  packet  to  the  Grand  Duke,  and  I 
will  also  convey  his  treasure  to  Pisa.  Confound  this  sky-blue 
domino !  " 

As  I  returned  to  the  palazzo  I  was  accosted  by  the  black 
domino. 

"  Milano  !  "  replied  I. 

"  Is  all  right,  Felippo  ?  "  said  he,  in  a  whisper. 

"  All  is  right,  Signor,"  was  my  answer. 

"Where  is  he?" 

I  pointed  with  my  finger  to  a  clump  of  orange-trees. 

"  And  the  paper  and  packet  ?  " 

I  nodded  my  head. 

"  Then  you  had  better  away — I  will  see  you  to-morrow." 

"At  the  old  place,  Signor  >" 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  black  domino,  cutting  into  a  cross-path, 
and  disappearing. 

I  arrived  at  the  palazzo,  mounted  the  steps,  forced  my  way 
through  the  crowd,  and  perceived  the  Grand  Duke  in  an 
inner  saloon,  the  lady  who  had  accosted  me  leaning  on  his 
arm.  It  then  occurred  to  me  that  the  Grand  Duke  had  an 
only  daughter,  whose  name  was  Viola.  I  entered  the  saloon, 
which  was  not  crowded,  and  walking  boldly  up  to  the  Grand 
Duke  presented  the  packet,  requesting  that  his  Highness 
would  give  it  his  immediate  attention.  I  then  bowed,  and 
hastened  away,  once  more  passed  through  the  thronged  hall, 
and  gained  the  marble  steps  of  the  palazzo. 

"  Have  you  given  it  ?  "  said  a  low  voice  close  to  me. 

"  I  have,"  replied  I ;  "  but,  Signor — 

"  Not  a  word,  Carlo ;  hasten  to  the  wood,  if  you  love  me." 
And  the  violet-coloured  domino  forced  his  way  into  the 
crowd  which  filled  the  hall. 

"  N7ow  for  my  journey  to  Pisa,"  said  I.  "  Here  I  am, 
implicated  in  high  treason,  perhaps,  in  consequence  of  my 
putting  on  a  sky-blue  domino.  Well,  there's  no  help  for  it." 


THE   SKY-BLUE   DOMINO 

In  a  few  minutes  I  had  gained  the  narrow  avenue,  and 
having  pursued  it  about  fifty  yards,  perceived  the  glaring 
eyes  of  the  crouched  negro.  By  the  starlight  I  could  just 
distinguish  that  he  had  a  basket,  or  something  like  one, 
before  him. 

"  What  do  you  come  for,  Signer  ? "  said  the  negro,  rising 
on  his  feet. 

"  For  what  has  been  placed  under  your  charge ;  here  is  the 
ring  of  your  master." 

The  negro  put  his  fingers  to  the  ring  and  felt  it,  that  he 
might  recognise  it  by  its  size  and  shape. 

"Here  it  is,  Signor,"  said  he,  lifting  up  the  basket  gently, 
and  putting  it  into  my  arms.  It  was  not  heavy,  although 
somewhat  cumbrous  from  its  size. 

"  Hark !  Signor,  there  is  confusion  in  the  palazzo.  You 
must  be  quick,  and  I  must  not  be  seen  with  you."  And  away 
darted  the  negro,  like  lightning,  through  the  bushes. 

I  also  hastened  away  with  the  basket  (contents  unknown), 
for  it  appeared  to  me  that  affairs  were  coming  to  a  crisis.  I 
heard  people  running  different  ways,  and  voices  approaching 
me.  When  I  emerged  from  the  narrow  avenue  I  perceived 
several  figures  coming  down  the  dark  walk  at  a  rapid  pace, 
and,  seized  with  a  sort  of  panic,  I  took  to  my  heels.  I  soon 
found  that  they  were  in  pursuit,  and  I  increased  my  speed. 
In  the  gloom  of  the  night,  I  unfortunately  tripped  over  a 
stone,  and  fell  with  the  basket  to  the  ground,  and  then  the 
screams  from  within  informed  me  that  the  treasure  entrusted 
to  my  safe  keeping  was  a  child.  Fearful  that  it  was  hurt, 
and  forgetting  for  the  time  the  danger  of  being  captured, 
I  opened  the  lid,  and  examined  its  limbs  while  I  tried  to 
pacify  it  ;  and  while  I  was  sitting  down  in  my  sky-blue 
domino,  thus  occupied  in  hushing  a  baby,  I  was  seized  by 
both  shoulders,  and  found  myself  a  prisoner. 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  rudeness,  Signers  ?  "  said  I, 
hardly  knowing  what  to  say. 

"  You  are  arrested  by  order  of  the  Grand  Duke." 

11 1  am  arrested  ! — why  ? — I  am  an  Englishman  !  " 

"  That  makes  no  difference ;  the  orders  are  to  arrest  all 
found  in  the  garden  in  sky-blue  dominos." 

"  Confound  the  sky-blue  domino ! "  thought  I,  for  the 
twentieth  time  at  least.  "Well,  Signers,  I  will  attend 
247 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

you  ;    but  first  let  me   try  to   pacify  this   poor   frightened 
infant." 

"  Strange  that  he  should  be  found  running  away  with  a 
child  at  the  same  time  that  the  Lady  Viola  has  disappeared  ! " 
observed  one  of  my  captors. 

"  You  are  right,  Signers,"  replied  I ;  "it  is  very  strange ; 
and  what  is  more  strange  is  that  I  can  no  more  explain  it 
than  you  can.  I  am  now  ready  to  accompany  you.  Oblige 
me  by  one  of  you  carrying  the  basket  while  I  take  care  of 
the  infant." 

In  a  few  minutes  we  had  arrived  at  the  palazzo.  I  had 
retained  my  mask,  and  I  was  conducted  through  the  crowd 
into  the  saloon  into  which  I  had  previously  entered  when 
I  delivered  the  packet  to  the  Grand  Duke. 

"There  he  is!  there  he  is!"  was  buzzed  through  the 
crowd  in  the  hall.  "  Holy  Virgin !  he  has  a  child  in  his 
arms!  Bambino  bcllissimof"  Such  w,ere  the  exclamations 
of  wonder  and  surprise  as  they  made  a  lane  for  my  passage, 
and  I  was  in  the  presence  of  the  Grand  Duke,  who  appeared 
to  be  in  a  state  of  great  excitement. 

"  It  is  the  same  person  !  "  exclaimed  the  Duke.  "  Confess  ! 
are  you  not  the  party  M-ho  put  a  packet  into  my  hands  about 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  since  ?  " 

"I  am  the  person,  your  Highness,"  replied  I,  as  I  patted 
and  soothed  the  frightened  child. 

"  Who  gave  it  you  ?" 

"  May  it  please  your  Highness,  I  do  not  know." 

"What  child  is  that?" 

"  May  it  please  your  Highness,  I  do  not  know." 

"  Where  did  you  get  it  ?  " 

"Out  of  that  basket,  your  Highness." 

"  Who  gave  you  the  basket  ?  " 

"  May  it  please  your  Highness,  I  do  not  know." 

"  You  are  trifling  with  me.     Let  him  be  searched." 

"May  it  please  your  Highness,  I  will  save  them  that 
trouble,  if  one  of  the  ladies  will  take  the  infant.  I  have 
received  a  great  many  presents  this  evening,  all  of  which  I 
will  have  the  honour  of  displaying  before  your  Highness." 

One  of  the  ladies  held  out  her  arms  to  the  infant,  who 
immediately  bent  from  mine  toward  her,  naturally  clinging 
to  the  other  sex  as  its  friend  in  distress. 
248 


THE  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO 

"In  the  first  place,  your  Highness,  I  have  this  evening 
received  this  ring,"  taking  off  my  finger  the  one  given  by  the 
party  in  a  violet-coloured  domino,  and  presenting  it  to  him. 

"And  from  whom?"  said  his  Highness,  instantly  recog- 
nising the  ring. 

"May  it  please  your  Highness,  I  do  not  know.  I  have 
also  received  another  ring,  your  Highness,"  continued  I, 
taking  off  the  ring  given  me  by  the  black  domino. 

"  And  who  gave  you  this  ?  "  interrogated  the  Duke,  again 
evidently  recognising  it. 

"  May  it  please  your  Highness,  I  do  not  know.  Also,  this 
stiletto,  but  from  whom,  I  must  again  repeat,  I  do  not  know. 
Also,  this  packet,  with  directions  to  put  it  into  a  dead  man's 
bosom." 

"And  you  are,  I  presume,  equally  ignorant  of  the  party 
who  gave  it  to  you  ?" 

"Equally  so,  your  Highness;  as  ignorant  as  I  am  of  the 
party  who  desired  me  to  present  you  with  the  other  packet 
which  I  delivered.  Here  is  also  a  paper  I  was  desired  to 
pin  upon  a  man's  clothes  after  I  had  assassinated  him." 

"  Indeed  ! — and  to  this,  also,  you  plead  total  ignorance  ?  " 

"  I  have  but  one  answer  to  give  to  all,  your  Highness, 
which  is,  I  do  not  know." 

"  Perhaps,  sir,  you  do  not  know  your  own  name  or  profes- 
sion," observed  his  Highness,  with  a  sneer. 

"Yes,  your  Highness,"  replied  I,  biking  off  my  mask, 
"that  I  do  know.  I  am  an  Englishman,  and,  I  trust,  a 
gentleman  and  a  man  of  honour.  My  name  is  Herbert ; 
and  I  have  more  than  once  had  the  honour  to  be  a  guest  at 
your  Highness's  entertainments." 

"Signor,  I  recognise  you,"  replied  the  Grand  Duke.  "Let 
the  room  be  cleared — I  must  speak  with  this  gentleman 
alone." 

When  the  company  had  quitted  the  saloon  I  entered  into 
a  minute  detail  of  the  events  of  the  evening,  to  which  his 
Highness  paid  the  greatest  attention  ;  and  when  I  had 
finished,  the  whole  mystery  was  unravelled  to  me  by  him, 
and  with  which  I  will  now  satisfy  the  curiosity  of  my  readers. 

The  Grand  Duke  had  one  daughter,  by  name  Viola,  whom 
he  had  wished  to  marry  to  Rodolph,  Count  of  Istria ;  but 
Viola  had  met  with  Albert,  Marquis  of  Salerno,  and  a  mutual 
249 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

attachment  had  ensued.  Although  the  Grand  Duke  would 
not  force  his  daughter's  wishes  and  oblige  her  to  marry 
Count  Rodolph,  at  the  same  time  he  would  not  consent  to 
her  espousals  with  the  Marquis  Albert.  Count  Rodolph  had 
discovered  the  intimacy  between  Viola  and  the  Marquis  of 
Salerno,  and  had  made  more  than  one  unsuccessful  attempt 
to  get  rid  of  his  rival  by  assassination.  After  some  time,  a 
private  marriage  with  the  Marquis  had  been  consented  to 
by  Viola  ;  and  a  year  afterwards  the  Lady  Viola  retired  to 
the  country,  and  without  the  knowledge,  or  even  suspicions, 
of  her  father,  had  given  birth  to  a  male  child,  which  had 
been  passed  off  as  the  offspring  of  one  of  the  ladies  of  the 
Court  who  was  married,  and  to  whom  the  secret  had  been 
confided. 

At  this  period  the  secret  societies,  especially  the  Carbonari, 
had  become  formidable  in  Italy,  and  all  the  crowned  heads 
and  reigning  princes  were  using  every  exertion  to  suppress 
them.  Count  Rodolph  was  at  the  head  of  these  societies, 
having  joined  them  to  increase  his  power,  and  to  have  at  his 
disposal  the  means  of  getting  rid  of  his  rival.  Of  this  the 
Marquis  of  Salerno  had  received  intimation,  and  for  some 
time  had  been  trying  to  obtain  proof  against  the  Count ;  for  he 
knew  that  if  once  it  was  proved,  Count  Rodolph  would  never 
be  again  permitted  to  appear  in  the  state  of  Lucca.  On  the 
other  hand,  Count  Rodolph  had  been  making  every  arrange- 
ment to  get  rid  of  his  rival,  and  had  determined  that  it  should 
be  effected  at  this  masquerade. 

The  Marquis  of  Salerno  had  notice  given  him  of  this  in- 
tention, and  also  had  on  that  morning  obtained  the  proof 
against  Count  Rodolph,  which  he  was  now  determined  to 
forward  to  the  Grand  Duke  ;  but,  aware  that  his  assassination 
by  the  Carbonari  was  to  be  attempted,  and  also  that  the 
wrath  of  the  Grand  Duke  would  be  excessive  when  he  was 
informed  of  their  private  marriage,  he  resolved  to  fly  with  his 
wife  to  Pisa,  trusting  that  the  proofs  of  Count  Rodolph  being 
connected  with  the  Carbonari,  and  a  little  time,  would  soften 
down  the  Grand  Duke's  anger.  The  Marquis  had  arranged 
that  he  should  escape  from  the  Duke's  dominions  on  the 
night  of  the  masquerade,  as  it  would  be  much  easier  for  his 
wife  to  accompany  him  from  thence  than  from  the  Grand 
Puke's  palace,  which  was  well  guarded  j  but  it  was  necessary 
250 


THE  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO 

that  they  should  travel  on  horseback,  and  they  could  not 
take  their  child  with  them.  Viola  would  not  consent  that 
it  should  be  left  behind;  and  on  this  emergency  he  had 
written  to  his  friend,  the  Count  d'Ossore,  to  come  to  their 
assistance  at  the  masquerade,  and,  that  they  might  recognise 
him,  to  wear  a  sky-blue  domino,  a  colour  but  seldom  put  on. 
The  Count  d'Ossore  had  that  morning  left  his  town  mansion 
on  a  hunting  excursion,  and  did  not  receive  the  letter,  of 
which  the  Marquis  and  Viola  were  ignorant.  Such  was  the 
state  of  affairs  at  the  time  that  I  put  on  the  sky-blue  domino 
to  go  to  the  masquerade. 

My  first  meeting  with  the  Marquis  in  his  violet-coloured 
domino  is  easily  understood  :  being  in  a  sky-blue  domino,  I 
was  mistaken  for  the  Count  d'Ossore.  I  was  myself  led  into 
the  mistake  by  the  Marquis  Albert  having  the  same  Christian 
name  as  my  English  friend.  The  second  meeting  with  the 
Count  Rodolph,  in  the  black  domino,  was  accidental.  The 
next  walk  had  been  appointed  as  the  place  of  meeting 
with  the  Carbonari,  Felippo  and  his  companions ;  but  Count 
Rodolph,  perceiving  me  examining  my  stiletto  by  the  light 
of  the  lamp,  presumed  that  I  was  Felippo,  and  that  I  had 
mistaken  the  one  path  for  the  other  which  had  been  agreed 
upon.  The  papers  given  to  me  by  Count  Rodolph  were 
Carbonari  papers,  which  were  to  be  hid  in  the  Marquis's 
bosom  after  he  had  been  assassinated,  to  make  it  appear  that 
he  had  belonged  to  that  society,  and  by  the  paper  affixed  to 
his  clothes,  that  he  had  been  murdered  by  the  agents  of  the 
society  for  having  betrayed  them.  The  papers  which  the 
Marquis  had  requested  me  to  give  to  the  Grand  Duke  were 
the  proofs  of  Count  Rodolph's  belonging  to  the  secret  society; 
and  with  those  papers  was  enclosed  a  letter  to  the  Grand 
Duke,  in  which  they  acknowledged  their  secret  union.  And 
now,  I  believe,  the  reader  will  comprehend  the  whole  of  this 
mysterious  affair. 

After  all  had  been  explained,  I  ventured  to  ask  his  High- 
ness if  he  would  permit  me  to  fulfil  my  promise  of  taking  the 
child  to  its  mother,  as  I  considered  it  a  point  of  honour  that 
I  should  keep  my  engagement,  the  more  so,  as  the  delay 
would  occasion  the  greatest  distress  to  his  daughter ;  and  I 
ventured  to  add  that  I  trusted  his  Highness  would  pardon 
what  could  not  now  be  remedied,  and  that  I  should  have  the 
251 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

satisfaction  of  being  the  bearer  of  such  pleasing  intelligence 
to  his  daughter  tind  the  Marquis. 

The  Grand  Duke  paced  the  room  for  a  minute,  and  then 
replied,  "  Signor  Herbert,  I  feel  so  disgusted  with  the 
treachery  and  baseness  of  Count  Rodolph  that  I  hardly  need 
observe,  if  my  daughter  were  free,  he  never  should  espouse 
her;  indeed,  he  will  have  immediate  orders  to  quit  the  State. 
You  have  been  instrumental  in  preserving  the  life  of  the 
Marquis  of  Salerno,  who  is  my  son-in-law,  and  as  matters 
now  stand,  I  am  indebted  to  you.  Your  dismissal  of  the 
bravoes,  by  means  of  the  Count's  ring,  was  a  masterly  stroke. 
You  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  taking  my  forgiveness  to  my 
daughter  and  her  husband ;  but  as  for  the  child,  it  may  as 
well  remain  here.  Tell  Viola  I  retain  it  as  a  hostage  for  the 
quick  return  of  its  mother." 

I  took  my  leave  of  his  Highness,  and  hastenend  to  Pisa, 
where  I  soon  found  out  the  retreat  of  the  Marquis  and  his 
wife.  I  sent  up  my  name,  requesting  immediate  admittance, 
as  having  a  message  from  the  Grand  Duke.  I  found  them  in 
great  distress.  The  Count  d'Ossore  had  returned  late  on  the 
night  of  the  masquerade,  found  the  letter,  hastened  to  the 
Marquesa  de  Cesto's,  and  had  arrived  just  after  the  elope- 
ment had  been  discovered.  He  immediately  followed  them 
to  Pisa,  when  an  explanation  took  place,  and  they  discovered 
that  they  had  been  communicating  with  some  unknown 
person,  by  whom  they  had,  in  all  probability,  been  betrayed. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  portray  their  astonishment  and  joy 
when  I  entered  into  a  detail  of  what  had  occurred,  and 
wound  up  with  the  message  from  the  Grand  Duke ;  and  I 
hardly  need  add,  now  that  I  wind  up  my  story,  that  the 
proofs  of  gratitude  I  received  from  the  Marquis  and  his  wife, 
during  my  subsequent  residence  in  Italy,  left  me  no  occasion 
to  repent  that  I  had  gone  to  the  masquerade  of  the  Marquesa 
de  Cesto  in  a  SKY-BLUE  DOMINO. 


252 


MODERN   TOWN   HOUSES 


1  HAVE  often  thought,  when  you  consider  the  difference  of 
comfort  between  houses  built  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  years 
back,  in  comparison  with  the  modern  edifices,  that  the  cry  of 
the  magician  in  "  Aladdin/'  had  he  called  out  "  new  houses," 
instead  of"  new  lamps,"  for  old  ones,  would  not  have  appeared 
so  very  absurd.  It  was  my  good  fortune,  for  the  major  part 
of  my  life,  to  occupy  an  ancient  house,  built,  I  believe,  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  My  father  lived  in  it  before  I  was 
in  existence  ;  I  was  born  in  it,  and  it  was  bequeathed  to  me. 
It  has  since  been  my  misfortune  to  have  lived  three  years  in 
one  of  the  modern-built  houses  ;  and  although  I  have  had  my 
share  of  the  ills  to  which  we  all  are  heir,  I  must  date  my  real 
unhappiness  from  the  first  month  after  I  took  possession. 
With  your  permission,  I  will  enter  into  my  history,  as  it  may 
prove  a  warning  to  others,  who  will  not  remember  the  old 
proverb  of  "  Let  well  alone." 

I  am  a  married  man,  with  six  children  ;  my  three  eldest 
are  daughters,  and  have  now  quitted  a  school  near  Portman 
Square,  to  which  my  wife  insisted  upon  my  sending  them, 
as  it  was  renowned  for  finishing  young  ladies.  Until  their 
return  to  domiciliate  themselves  under  my  roof,  I  never  heard 
a  complaint  of  my  house,  which  was  situated  at  Brompton. 
It  was  large,  airy,  and  comfortable,  with  excellent  shrubberies, 
and  a  few  acres  of  land  ;  and  I  possessed  every  comfort  and 
even  luxury  which  could  be  rationally  required,  my  wife  and 
daughters  having  their  carriage,  and  in  every  respect  my 
establishment  being  that  of  a  gentleman. 

I  had  not,  however,  taken  my  daughters  from  school  more 
than  two  months,  before  I  was  told  that  we  were  "living  out 
of  the  world,"  although  not  a  mile  and  a  half  from  Hyde 
253 


OLLA    PODRIDA 

Park  Corner;  and,  to  my  surprise,  my  wife  joined  in  the  cry; 
it  was  always  from  morn  to  night,  "  We  might  do  this,  but  we 
cannot  do  this  because  we  are  quite  out  of  the  world."  It 
was  too  far  to  dine  out  in  town ;  too  far  for  people  to  come 
and  dine  with  us ;  too  far  to  go  to  the  play,  or  the  opera ; 
too  far  to  drive  in  the  park ;  too  far  even  to  walk  in 
Kensington  Gardens.  I  remonstrated,  that  we  had  managed 
to  dine  out,  to  receive  visitors,  and  to  enjov  all  other  amuse- 
ments very  well  for  a  considerable  number  of  years,  and  that 
it  did  not  appear  to  me  that  Brompton  had  walked  away  from 
London — on  the  contrary,  that  London  was  making  rapid 
advances  towards  Brompton ;  but  it  would  not  do — all  day 
the  phrase  rang  in  my  ears,  "out  of  the  world,"  until  I 
almost  began  to  wish  that  I  was  out  too.  But  it  is  no  use 
having  the  best  of  an  argument  when  opposed  to  women.  I 
had  my  choice,  either  to  give  up  my  house  and  take  another 
in  London,  or  to  give  up  my  peace.  With  an  unwilling  sigh, 
I  at  last  consented  to  leave  a  place  dear  to  me,  from  long 
association  and  many  reminiscences ;  and  it  was  arranged 
that  Brompton  Hall  was  to  be  let  or  sold,  and  that  we  were 
to  look  out  immediately  for  a  house  in  some  of  the  squares  of 
the  metropolis.  If  my  wife  and  daughters  found  that  the 
distance  from  London  was  too  far  for  other  purposes,  at  all 
events,  it  was  not  too  far  for  house-hunting.  They  were  at  it 
incessantly  week  after  week  ;  and  at  last  they  fixed  upon 
one  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Belgrave  Square,  which,  as  they 
repeated,  possessed  all  the  cheerfulness  and  fresh  air  of  the 
country,  with  all  the  advantages  of  a  town  residence.  The 
next  day  I  was  to  be  dragged  to  see  it,  and  give  my  opinion  ; 
at  the  same  time,  from  the  commendations  bestowed  upon  it 
previous  to  my  going,  I  felt  assured  that  I  was  expected  to 
give  their  opinion,  and  not  my  own. 

The  next  day,  accordingly,  we  repaired  thither,  setting 
off  immediately  after  breakfast  to  meet  the  surveyor  and 
builder,  who  was  to  be  on  the  spot.  The  house  in  question 
was  one  of  a  row  just  building,  or  built,  whitened  outside, 
in  imitation  of  stone.  It  was  No.  2.  No.  1  was  finished  ; 
but  the  windows  were  still  stained  with  the  drippings  of  the 
whitewash  and  colouring.  No.  2,  the  one  in  question,  was 
complete ;  and,  as  the  builder  asserted,  ready  for  immediate 
occupation.  No.  3  was  not  so  far  advanced.  As  for  the 
254 


MODERN   TOWN   HOUSES 

others,  they  were  at  present  nothing  but  carcasses,  without 
even  the  front  steps  built  to  them ;  and  you  entered  them 
by  a  drawbridge  of  planks. 

The  builder  stood  at  the  front  door,,  and  bowed  most 
respectfully.  "Why,"  observed  I,  looking  at  the  piles  of 
mortar,  lime,  and  bricks,  standing  about  in  all  directions, 
"we  shall  be  smothered  with  dust  and  lime  for  the  next  two 
years." 

"Don't  be  alarmed,  sir,"  replied  the  builder;  "every 
house  in  the  row  will  be  finished  before  the  winter.  We 
really  cannot  attend  to  the  applications  for  them." 

We  entered  the  .house. 

"  Is  not  the  entrance  handsome  ?  "  observed  my  wife  ;  "  so 
neat  and  clean." 

To  this  I  had  not  a  reply  to  make  ;  it  certainly  did  look 
neat  and  clean. 

We  went  into  the  dining-room.  "  What  a  nice  room  !  " 
exclaimed  my  eldest  daughter.  "  How  many  can  we  dine 
in  this  room  ?  " 

"  Um  !"  replied  I,  "about  twelve,  I  suppose,  comfortably.^ 

"Dear  me!"  observed  the  builder;  "you  have  no  notion 
of  the  size  of  the  house  ;  rooms  are  so  deceiving,  unfurnished. 
You  may  sit  down  twenty  with  ease ;  I'll  appeal  to  the  lady. 
Don't  you  think  so,  ma'am  ?" 

"Yes,  I  do,"  replied  my  wife. 

After  that  we  went  over  the  drawing-rooms,  bedrooms, 
and  attics. 

Every  bedroom  was  apportioned  by  my  wife  and  daughters, 
and  the  others  were  allotted  to  the  servants  ;  and  that  in 
the  presence  of  the  builder,  who  took  good  note  of  all  that 
passed. 

The  kitchen  was  admired  ;  so  were  the  pantry,  scullery, 
coal-hole,  dust-hole,  &c.  ;  all  so  nice  and  clean;  so  compact; 
and,  as  the  builder  observed,  not  a  nail  to  drive  anywhere. 

"Well,  my  dear,  what  do  you  think  now  ?  isn't  it. a  charm- 
ing house  ?  "  said  my  wife,  as  we  reascended  into  the  dining- 
parlour. 

"  It's  a  very  nice  house,  my  dear  ;  but  still  it  requires  a 
little  consideration,"  replied  I. 

"  Consideration,  my  dear  ?  "  replied  my  wife  ;  "  what !  now 
that  you  have  gone  over  it  ?  " 

255 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  I  am  afraid  that  I  cannot  give  you  very  long,  sir," 
observed  the  builder ;  "  there  are  two  other  parties  after 
the  house,  and  I  am  to  give  them  an  answer  by  two 
o'clock." 

"  Mr.  Smithers  told  me  the  same  yesterday,"  whispered 
my  wife. 

"  What  did  you  say  the  rent  was,  Mr.  Smithers?" 

"  Only  £200  per  annum." 

"  Any  ground  rent  ?  " 

"Only  £27,  10s." 

te  And  the  taxes  ?  " 

"  Oh,  they  will  be  a  mere  trifle." 

"The  rent  appears  to  me  to  be  very  high." 

"  High,  my  dear  sir !  consider  the  situation,  the  advan- 
tages. We  can't  build  them  fast  enough  at  that  price.  But, 
of  course,  sir,  you  best  know,"  replied  he,  carelessly  walking 
towards  the  window. 

"  Take  it,  my  dear,"  said  my  wife. 

"  You  must  take  it,  papa." 

"  Pray  take  it,  papa." 

"  Mr.  What's-your-name,  I  beg  your  pardon " 

"Smithers,  sir,"  said  the  builder,  turning  round. 

"  Pray,  Mr.  Smithers,  what  term  of  lease  do  you  let  at  ?  " 

"  Seven,  fourteen,  or  twenty-one,  at  the  option  of  either 
party,  sir." 

"  I  should  have  no  objection  to  take  it  for  three  years." 

"  Three  years,  my  dear  sir  ! — that  would  be  doing  your- 
self an  injustice.  You  would  lose  half  the  value  of  your 
fixtures,  provided  you  left— and  then  the  furniture.  Depend 
upon  it,  sir,  if  you  once  get  into  it,  you  will  never  wish  to 
leave  it." 

"  That  may  or  not  be,"  replied  I ;  "  but  I  will  not  take  it 
for  more  than  three  years.  The  town  air  may  not  agree  with 
me;  and  if,  as  you  say,  people  are  so  anxious  to  take  the 
houses,  of  course  it  can  make  no  difference  to  you." 

"  I'm  afraid,  sir,  that  for  so  short  a  time " 

"  I  will  not  take  it  for  longer/'  replied  I,  rising  up,  glad 
of  an  excuse  to  be  off. 

"  Oh,  papa  !  " 

"  My  dear  Mr.  fi " 

"  On  that  point/'  replied  I,  « I  will  not  be  overruled.     I 


MODERN   TOWN   HOUSES 

will  not  take  a  lease  for  more  than  three  years,  with  the 
right  of  continuing,  if  I  please." 

The  builder  perceived  that  I  was  in  earnest. 

"  Well,  sir,"  replied  he,  "  I  hardly  know  what  to  say ; 
but  rather  than  disappoint  the  ladies,  I  will  accept  you  as 
a  tenant  for  three  years  certain." 

"  Confound  the  fellow  !  "  thought  I ;  but  I  was  pinned,  and 
there  was  an  end  of  the  matter.  Mr.  Smithers  pulled  out 
paper  and  ink ;  two  letters  of  agreement  were  written  upon 
a  small  deal  table,  covered  with  blotches  of  various  coloured 
paints  ;  and  the  affair  was  thus  concluded. 

We  got  into  the  carriage,  and  drove  home,  my  wife  and 
daughters  in  ecstasies,  and  I  obliged  to  appear  very  well 
satisfied,  that  I  might  not  damp  their  spirits  ;  yet  I  must  say 
that  although  the  house  appeared  a  very  nice  house,  I  had 
my  forebodings. 

"  At  all  events,"  thought  I,  "  the  lease  is  only  for  three 
years,"  and  thus  I  consoled  myself. 

The  next  day  the  whole  house  was  in  commotion.  I  be- 
lieve my  wife  and  daughters  were  up  at  daybreak.  When  I 
went  into  the  breakfast-room,  I  discovered  that  the  pictures 
had  been  taken  down,  although  there  was  no  chance  of  their 
being  hung  up  for  many  weeks  at  least,  and  everything  was 
in  preparation  for  packing  up.  After  breakfast,  my  wife  set 
off  for  town  to  order  carpets  and  curtains,  and  did  not  come 
home  till  six  o'clock,  very  tired  with  the  fatigues  of  the 
day.  She  had  also  brought  the  measure  of  every  grate,  to 
ascertain  what  fenders  would  suit ;  the  measure  of  the  bed 
rooms  and  attics,  to  remodel  the  carpets  ;  for  it  was  proposed 
that  Brompton  Hall  should  be  disposed  of,  the  new  occupier 
taking  at  a  valuation  what  furniture  might  be  left.  To  this 
1  appeared  to  consent ;  but  was  resolved  in  my  own  mind  that, 
if  taken,  it  should  only  be  for  the  same  term  of  years  as  my 
new  lease.  I  will  pass  over  a  month  of  hurry,  bustle,  and 
confusion,  at  the  end  of  which  I  found  myself  in  our  new 
habitation.  It  was  completely  furnished,  with  the  exception 
of  the  drawing-room  carpet,  which  had  not  been  laid  down, 
but  was  still  in  a  roll  tied  up  with  packthread  in  the  middle 
of  the  room.  The  cause  of  this  I  soon  understood  from  my 
wife.  It  was  always  the  custom,  she  said,  to  give  a  house- 
warming  upon  entering  a  new  house,  and  she  therefore  pro- 
257  n 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

posed  giving  a  little  dance.     To  this,  as  it  would  please  her 
and  my  daughters,  I  raised  no  objection. 

I  have  always  observed  that  what  was  proposed  as  a  little 
dance  invariably  ends  in  a  great  one ;  for  from  the  time  of 
proposing  till  the  cards  are  about,  it  increases  like  a  snow 
ball ;  but  that  arises,  perhaps,  from  the  extreme  difficulty 
of  knowing  when  to  draw  the  line  between  friends  and 
acquaintances.  I  have  also  observed  that  when  your  wife 
and  daughters  intend  such  a  thing,  they  always  obtain  per- 
mission for  the  ball  first,  and  then  tack  on  the  supper  after- 
Awards  ;  commencing  with  a  mere  stand-up  affair — sandwiches, 
cakes,  and  refreshments — and  ending  with  a  regular  sit-down 
affair ;  with  Gunter  presiding  over  all.  The  music  from  two 
fiddles  and  a  piano  also  swells  into  Collinet's  band,  verifying 
the  old  adage,  "  In  for  a  penny,  in  for  a  pound."  But  to  all 
this  I  gave  my  consent ;  I  could  afford  it  well,  and  I  liked 
to  please  my  wife  and  daughters.  The  ball  was  given,  and 
this  house-warming  ended  in  house-breaking;  for  just  before 
the  supper-quadrille,  as  it  was  termed,  when  about  twenty- 
four  young  ladies  and  gentlemen  were  going  the  grand 
ronde,  a  loud  noise  below,  with  exclamations  and  shrieks, 
was  heard,  and  soon  afterwards  the  whole  staircase  was 
smothered  with  dust. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ? "  cried  my  wife,  who  had  passed  to 
the  landing-place  on  the  stairs  before  me. 

te  Ma'am,"  said  one  of  Mr.  Gunter's  men,  shaking  the 
lappets  of  his  blue  coat,  which  were  covered  with  white 
dust,  "  the  whole  ceiling  of  the  dining-room  has  come 
down ! " 

"  Ceiling  come  down  ! "  screamed  my  wife. 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  replied  our  own  servant;  "and  the  supper 
and  supper-tables  are  all  smashed  flat  with  the  weight  on 
it." 

Here  was  a  catastrophe.  My  wife  hastened  down,  and  I 
followed.  Sure  enough  the  weight  of  mortar  had  crushed 
all  beneath  it — all  was  chaos  and  confusion.  Jellies,  blanc- 
manges, pates,  cold  roasts,  creams,  trifles, — all  in  one  mass 
of  ruin,  mixed  up  with  lime,  horsehair,  plaster  of  Paris,  and 
stucco.  It  wore  all  the  appearance  of  a  Swiss  avalanche  in 
miniature. 

•'Good  heavens,  how  dreadful !"  exclaimed  my  wife. 
859 


MODERN  TOWN   HOUSES 

"How  much  more  so  if  there  had  been  people  in  the 
room,"  replied  I. 

"  What  could  be  the  cause  of  it !  "  exclaimed  my  wife. 

"  These  new  houses,  sir,  won't  bear  dancing  in,"  observed 
Mr.  Gunter's  head-man. 

"  So  it  appears,"  replied  I. 

This  unfortunate  accident  was  the  occasion  of  the  party 
breaking  up  :  they  knew  that  there  was  no  chance  of  supper, 
which  they  had  looked  forward  to ;  so  they  put  on  their 
shawls  and  departed,  leaving  us  to  clear  up  the  wreck  at 
our  leisure.  In  fact,  as  my  daughters  declared,  it  quite 
spoiled  the  ball  as  well  as  the  supper. 

The  next  morning  I  sent  for  Mr.  Smithers,  who  made  his 
appearance,  and  showed  him  what  had  taken  place. 

"Dear  me,  I'm  very  sorry;  but  you  had  too  many  people 
above  stairs — that  is  very  clear." 

"Very  clear,  indeed,  Mr.  Smithers.  We  had*  a  ball  last 
night." 

"A  ball,  sir!     Oh,  then,  no  wonder." 

"  No  wonder !  What !  do  you  mean  to  say  that  balls  are 
not  to  be  given  ?  " 

"Why,  really,  sir,  we  do  not  build  private  houses  for 
ball-rooms — we  could  not,  sir;  the  price  of  timber  just  now 
is  enormous,  and  the  additional  strength  required  would 
never  pay  us." 

"  What  then !  do  you  mean  to  say  that  there  are  no  balls 
to  be  given  in  London  ?  " 

"  Oh  no,  sir  ! — certainly  not ;  but  you  must  be  aware  that 
few  people  do.  Even  our  aristocracy  hire  Willis's  rooms  for 
their  balls.  Some  of  the  old  houses,  indeed,  such  as  Devon- 
shire House,  may  do  for  such  a  thing." 

"  But,  Mr.  Smithers,  I  expect  you  will  make  this  ceiling 
good." 

"Much  obliged  to  you,  sir,  for  giving  me  the  preference — 
I  will  do  it  as  reasonable  as  anybody,"  replied  Mr.  Smithers, 
bowing.  "  I  will  order  my  workmen  directly — they  are  only 
next  door." 

For  a  fortnight  we  were  condemned  to  dine  in  the  back 
dining-room ;  and  after  that  Mr.  Smithers  sent  in  a  bill 
which  cost  me  more  than  the  ball  and  supper. 

So  soon  as  all  was  right  again,  I  determined  that  I  wouH 
259 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

hang  up  my  pictures ;  for  I  had  been  accustomed  to  look  at 
them  for  years,  and  I  missed  them.  I  sent  for  a  carpenter, 
and  gave  him  directions. 

"1  have  the  middle  now,  sir,  exactly,"  said  the  man, 
standing  on  the  high  steps;  "but,"  continued  he,  tapping 
with  his  hammer,  "  I  can't  find  wood." 

"  Can't  find  wood  ! " 

"  No,  sir,"  replied  the  man,  tapping  as  far  as  he  could 
reach  from  right  to  left;  "nothing  to  nail  to,  sir.  But 
there  never  is  no  wood  in  these  new-built  houses." 

"  Confound  your  new  houses  !  "  exclaimed  I. 

"  Well,  it  is  very  provoking,  my  dear ! "  exclaimed  my 
wife. 

"  I  suppose  that  their  new  houses  are  not  built  for  pictures 
any  more  than  for  balls,"  replied  I ;  and  I  sighed.  "  What 
must  be  done?" 

"  I  think,  sir,  if  you  were  to  order  brass  rods  to  be  fixed 
from  one  corner  to  the  other,  we  might  find  means  to 
fasten  them,"  observed  the  carpenter ;  "  but  there's  no 
wood,  that's  certain." 

"What  the  devil  is  the  house  built  of,  then?"  ex^ 
claimed  I. 

"  All  lath  and  plaster,  sir,"  replied  the  man,  tapping  right 
and  left 

At  a  heavy  expense  I  procured  the  rods,  and  at  last  the 
pictures  were  hung  up. 

The  next  annoyance  that  we  had  was  a  very  bad  smell, 
which  we  found  to  proceed  from  the  drains ;  and  the  brick- 
layers were  sent  for.  All  the  drains  were  choked,  it  ap- 
peared, from  their  being  so  very  narrow :  and  after  having 
up  the  whole  basement,  at  the  expense  of  £40,  that  nuisance 
was  abated. 

.We  now  had  two  months'  repose,  and  I  was  in  hopes  that 
things  would  go  on  more  comfortably  ;  but  one  day  I  over 
heard  a  conversation  between  my  wife  and  daughters,  as  I 
passed  by  the  door  of  the  room,  which  I  must  candidly 
acknowledge  gave  me  satisfaction. 

"  It's  really  very  awkward,  mamma — one  don't  know  where 
to  put  anything  -.  there's  not  a  cupboard  or  stow-hole  in  the 
whole  house — not  even  a  store-room." 

"  Well,  it  is  so,  my  dear ;  I  wonder  we  did  not  observe  it 
260 


MODERN  TOWN   HOUSES 

when  we  looked  over  it.  What  a  nice  set  of  cupboards  we 
had  at  Brompton  Hall  !  " 

"  Oh  yes— I  wish  we  had  them  here,  mamma.  Couldn't 
we  have  some  built  ?  " 

"  I  don't  like  to  speak  to  your  papa  about  it,  my  dear ;  he 
has  already  been  put  to  such  expense,  what  with  the  ceiling 
and  the  drains." 

"Then  don't,  mamma;  papa  is  really  very  good-natured." 

The  equinoxes  now  came  on,  and  we  had  several  gales  of 
wind,  with  heavy  rain — the  slates  blew  off  and  rattled  up 
and  down  all  night,  while  the  wind  howled  round  the  covnrr 
of  the  square.  The  next  morning  complaints  from  all  the 
attic  residents;  one's  bed  was  wetted  quite  through  with 
the  water  dropping  through  the  ceiling — another  had  been 
obliged  to  put  a  basin  on  the  floor  to  catch  the  leak — all 
declared  that  the  roof  was  like  a  sieve.  Sent  again  for 
Mr.  Smithers,  and  made  a  complaint. 

"This  time,  Mr.  Smithers/'  said  I,  with  the  lease  in  my 
hand,  "  I  believe  you  will  acknowledge  these  are  landlord's 
repairs." 

"Certainly,  sir,  certainly,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Smithers;  "I 
shall  desire  one  of  my  men  to  look  to  it  immediately  ;  but 
the  fact  is,  with  such  heavy  gales,  the  slates  must  be  ex- 
pected to  move  a  little.  Duchesses  and  countesses  are  very 
light,  and  the  wind  gets  underneath  them." 

"  Duchesses  and  countesses  very  light ! "  exclaimed  my 
wife  ;  "  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  It's  the  term  we  give  to  slates,  madam,"  replied  he  ; 
"we  cannot  put  on  a  heavy  roof  with  a  brick-and-a-half 
wall.  It  would  not  support  one." 

"  Brick-and-a-half  wall  !  "  exclaimed  I  ;  —  "  surely,  Mr. 
Smithers,  that's  not  quite  safe  with  a  house  so  high." 

"Not  quite  safe,  my  dear  sir,  if  it  were  a  single  house; 
but,"  added  he,  "in  a  row,  one  house  supports  another." 

"Thank  Heaven,"  thought  I,  "  I  have  but  a  three-years' 
lease,  and  six  months  are  gone  already." 

But  the  annoyances  up  to  this  period  were  internal ;  we 
now  had  to  experience  the  external  nuisances  attending  a 
modern-built  house. 

"  No.  1  is  taken,  papa,  and  they  are  getting  the  furniture 
in/'  said  my  eldest  daughter  one  day;  "I  hope  we  shall 
261 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

have  nice  neighbours.  And  William  told  Mary  that  Mr. 
Smithers  told  him,  when  he  met  him  in  the  street,  tint  he 
was  now  going  to  fit  up  No.  3  as  fast  as  he  could." 

The  report  was  true,  as  we  found  from  the  report  of  the 
carpenters'  hammers  for  the  next  three  or  four  weeks.  We 
could  not  obtain  a  moment's  sleep  except  in  the  early  part 
of  the  night,  or  a  minute's  repose  to  our  ears  during  the 
day.  The  sound  appeared  as  if  it  was  in  our  house  instead  of 
next  door ;  and  it  commenced  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  lasted  till  seven  in  the  evening.  I  was  hammered  to 
death,  and,  unfortunately,  there  was  a  constant  succession 
of  rain,  which  prevented  me  going  out  to  avoid  it.  I  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  watch  my  pictures,  as  they  jumped 
from  the  wall  with  the  thumps  of  the  hammers.  At  last 
No.  3  was  floored,  wainscoted,  and  glazed,  and  we  had  a 
week's  repose. 

By  this  time  No.  1  was  furnished,  and  the  parties  who 
had  t;iken  it  came  in.  They  were  a  gouty  old  gentle- 
man, and  his  wife,  who,  report  said,  had  once  been  his 
cook.  My  daughters'  hopes  of  pleasant  neighbours  were 
disappointed.  Before  they  had  been  in  a  week,  we  found 
ourselves  at  issue  :  the  old  gentleman's  bed  was  close  to 
the  partition- wall,  and  in  the  dead  of  the  night  we  could 
distinctly  hear  his  groans,  and  also  his  execrations  and 
exclamations,  when  the  fit  came  on  him.  My  wife  and 
daughters  declared  that  it  was  quite  horrible,  and  that  they 
could  not  sleep  for  them. 

Upon  the  eighth  day  there  came  a  note : — 

"  Mrs.  Whortleback's  compliments  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  , 

and  begs  that  the  young  people  will  not  play  on  the  piany, 
as  Mr.  Whortleback  is  very  ill  with  the  gout." 

Now,  my  daughters  were  proficients  on  the  piano,  and 
practised  a  great  deal.  This  note  was  anything  but  satis- 
factory :  to  play  when  the  old  gentleman  was  ill  would  be 
barbarous, — not  to  play  was  to  deprive  ourselves  of  our 
greatest  pleasure. 

"  Oh  dear  !  how  very  disagreeable,"  cried  my  daughters. 

"Yes,  my  dear;  but  if  we  can  hear  his  groans,  it's  no 
wonder  that  he  can  hear  the  piano  and  harp :  recollect  the 
Wall  is  only  a  brick  and  a  half  thick." 

(t  I  wonder  music  don't  soothe  him,"  observed  the  eldest, 


MODERN   TOWN   HOUSES 

Music  is  a  mockery  to  a  man  in  agony.  A  man  who 
has  been  broken  on  the  wheel  would  not  have  his  last 
hours  soothed  by  the  finest  orchestra.  After  a  week,  during 
which  we  sent  every  day  to  inquire  after  Mr.  Whortleback's 
health,  we  ventured  to  resume  the  piano  and  harp  ;  upon 
which  the  old  gentleman  became  testy,  and  sent  for  a 
man  with  a  trumpet,  placing  him  in  the  balcony,  and 
desiring  him  to  play  as  much  out  of  tune  as  possible,  when- 
ever the  harp  and  piano  sounded  a  note.  Thus  were  we 
at  open  hostility  with  our  only  neighbour ;  and  as  we  were 
certain,  if  my  daughters  touched  their  instruments,  to  have 
the  trumpet  blowing  discord  for  an  hour  or  two,  either 
that  day  or  the  next,  at  last  the  piano  was  unopened,  and 
the  harp  remained  in  its  case.  Before  the  year  closed, 
No.  3  became  tenanted ;  and  here  we  had  a  new  annoy- 
ance. It  was  occupied  by  a  large  family  \  and  there  were 
four  young  ladies  who  were  learning  music.  We  now  had 
our  annoyance :  it  was  strum,  strum,  all  day  long ;  one 
sister  up,  another  down ;  and  every  one  knows  what  a  bore 
the  first  lessons  in  music  are  to  those  who  are  compelled 
to  hear  them.  They  could  just  manage  to  play  a  tune, 
and  that  eternal  tune  was  ringing  in  our  ears  from  morning 
to  night.  We  could  not  send  our  compliments,  or  blow  a 
trumpet.  We  were  forced  to  submit  to  it.  The  nursery 
also  being  against  the  partition  wall,  we  had  the  squalls 
and  noise  of  the  children  on  the  one  side,  added  to  groans 
and  execrations  of  the  old  gentleman  on  the  other, 

However,  custom  reconciled  us  to  everything,  and  the 
first  vexation  gradually  wore  off.  Yet  I  could  not  help 
observing  that,  when  I  was  supposed  not  to  be  in  hearing, 
the  chief  conversation  of  my  wife,  when  her  friends  called 
upon  her,  consisted  of  a  description  of  all  the  nuisances 
and  annoyances  that  we  suffered  ;  and  I  felt  assured  that 
she  and  my  daughters  were  as  anxious  to  return  to  Brompton 
Hall  as  I  was.  In  fact,  the  advantages  which  they  had 
anticipated  by  their  town  residence  were  not  realised.  In 
our  situation,  we  were  as  far  off  from  most  of  our  friends, 
and  still  farther  from  some,  than  we  were  before,  and  we 
had  no  longer  the  same  amusements  to  offer  them.  At 
our  former  short  distance  from  town,  access  was  more  easy 
to  those  who  did  not  keep  a  carriage,  that  is,  the  young 
* 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

men;  and  those  were  the  parties  who,  of  course,  my  wife 
and  daughters  cared  for  most.  It  was  very  agreeable  to 
come  down  with  their  portmanteaus, — enjoy  the  fresh  air 
and  green  lanes  of  the  country  for  an  afternoon, — dine, 
sleep,  and  breakfast,  and  return  the  next  morning  by  con- 
veyances which  passed  us  eveiy  quarter  of  an  hour ;  but 

to   dine   with   us    in Square,   when   the  expense  of  a 

hackney-coach  there  and  back  was  no  trifle,  and  to  return 
at  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  was  not  at  all  agreeable.  We 
found  that  we  had  not  so  much  society,  nor  were  we  half 
so  much  courted,  as  at  Brompton  Hall.  This  was  the 
bitterest  blow  of  all,  and'  my  wife  and  daughters  would 
look  out  of  the  windows  and  sigh;  often  a  whole  day 
passed  without  one  friend  or  acquaintance  dropping  in  to 
relieve  its  monotony. 

We  continued  to  reside  there,  nevertheless,  for  I  had 
made  up  my  mind  that  the  three  years  would  be  well 
spent  if  they  cured  my  wife  and  daughters  of  their  town 
mania ;  and  although  anxious,  as  I  am  sure  they  were,  to 
return,  I  never  broached  the  matter,  for  I  was  determined 
that  the  cure  should  be  radical.  Nos.  4,  5,  6,  7,  and  8 
were  finished  the  next  year,  and,  by  the  persuasions  of  Mr. 
Smithers,  were  taken  by  different  parties  in  the  spring. 
And  now  we  had  another  nuisance.  Nothing  but  eternal 
rings  at  the  bell.  The  man-servant  grumbled,  and  was 
behind  with  his  work ;  and  when  scolded,  replied  that 
there  was  no  time  for  anything,  that  when  cleaning  his 
knives  and  plate  the  bell  was  rung,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
wash  himself,  throw  on  his  jacket,  and  go  up  to  answer 
the  front  door;  that  the  bell  was  not  rung  for  us,  but  to 
find  out  where  some  new-comer  lived,  and  to  ascertain  this 
they  always  rang  at  the  house  which  appeared  the  longest 
inhabited.  There  was  no  end  to  the  ringing  for  some 
months,  and  we  had  three  servants  who  absolutely  refused 
to  stay  in  so  bad  a  place.  We  had  also  to  contend  with 
letters  and  notes  in  the  same  way,  brought  to  us  at  hap- 
hazard :  "Does  Mr.  So-and-so  live  here?" — "No,  he  does 
not." — "Then  pray  where  does  he?"  This  was  intermin- 
able, and  not  five  minutes  in  the  day  passed  without  the 
door-bell  being  rung.  For  the  sake  of  not  changing  my 
servants  I  was  at  last  put  to  the  expense  of  an  extra  boy 
264 


MODERN  TOWN  HOUSES 

for  no  other  purpose  but  to  answer  the  constant  appli- 
cations at  the  door.  '  At  last  we  had  remained  there  for 
two  years  and  nine  months,  and  then  my  wife  would  occa- 
sionally put  the  question  whether  I  intended  to  renew  the 
lease  ;  and  I  naturally  replied  that  I  did  not  like  change. 

Then  she  went  upon  another  tack;  observed  that  Clara 
did  not  appear  well  for  some  time,  and  that  she  thought 
that  she  required  country  air;  but  in  this  I  did  not  choose 
to  agree  with  her. 

One  day  I  came  home,  and,  rubbing  my  hands  as  if 
pleased,  said,  "Well,  at  last  I've  an  offer  for  Brompton 
Villa  for  a  term  of  seven  years, — a  very  fair  offer  and  good 
tenants, — so  that  will  now  be  off'  my  hands." 

My  wife  looked  mortified,  and  my  daughters  held  down 
their  heads. 

"  Have  you  let  it,  papa  ? "  said  one  of  my  daughters 
timidly. 

"  No,  not  yet ;  but  I  am  to  give  an  answer  to-morrow 
morning." 

"  It  requires  consideration,  my  dear,"  replied  my  wife. 

"  Requires  consideration  !"  said  I.  "Why,  my  dear,  the 
parties  have  seen  the  house,  and  I  have  been  trying  to  let 
it  these  three  years.  I  recollect  when  I  took  this  house 
I  said  it  required  consideration,  but  you  would  not  allow 
any  such  thing." 

"  I'm  sure  I  wish  we  had,"  said  Clara. 

"  And  so  do  I." 

"The  fact  is,  my  dear,"  said  my  wife,  coming  round  to 
the  back  of  my  chair,  and  putting  her  arms  round  my  neck, 
"we  all  wish  to  go  back  to  Brompton." 

"Yes,  yes,  papa,"  added  my  daughters,  embracing  me  on 
each  side. 

"You  will  allow,  then,  that  I  was  right  in  not  taking  a 
lease  for  more  than  three  years  ?  " 

"  Yes  :  how  lucky  you  were  so  positive  !  " 

"Well,  then,  if  that  is  the  case,  we  will  unfurnish  this  house, 
and,  as  soon  as  you  please,  go  back  to  Brompton  Hall." 

I  hardly  need  observe  that  we  took  possession  of  our  old 
abode  with  delight,  and  that  I  have  had  no  more  applications 
for  a  change  of  residence,  or  have  again  heard  the  phrase  that 
we  were  living  "out  of  the  world." 
265 


THE  WAY  TO  BE  HAPPY 


your  coat  according  to  your  cloth,"  is  an  old  maxim 
and  a  wise  one ;  and  if  people  will  only  square  their  ideas 
according  to  their  circumstances,  how  much  happier  might  we 
all  be  !  If  we  only  would  come  down  a  peg  or  two  in  our 
notions,  in  accordance  with  our  waning  fortunes,  happiness 
would  be  always  within  our  reach.  It  is  not  what  we  have, 
or  what  we  have  not,  which  adds  or  subtracts  from  our  felicity. 
It  is  the  longing  for  more  than  we  have,  the  envying  of  those 
who  possess  that  more,  and  the  wish  to  appear  in  the  world 
of  more  consequence  than  we  really  are,  which  destroy  our 
peace  of  mind,  and  eventually  lead  to  ruin. 

I  never  witnessed  a  man  submitting  to  circumstances  with 
good  humour  and  good  sense  so  remarkably  as  in  my  friend 
Alexander  Willemott.  When  I  first  met  him,  since  our  school 
days,  it  was  at  the  close  of  the  war  :  he  had  been  a  large  con- 
tractor with  Government  for  army  clothing  and  accoutre- 
ments, and  was  said  to  have  realised  an  immense  fortune, 
although  his  accounts  were  not  yet  settled.  Indeed,  it  was 
said  that  they  were  so  vast  that  it  would  employ  the  time  of 
six  clerks  for  two  years  to  examine  them,  previous  to  the 
balance-sheet  being  struck.  As  I  observed,  he  had  been  at 
school  with  me,  and  on  my  return  from  the  East  Indies,  I 
called  upon  him  to  renew  our  old  acquaintance,  and  con- 
gratulate him  upon  his  success. 

"  My  dear  Reynolds,  I  am  delighted  to  see  you.  You  must 
come  down  to  Belem  Castle  ;  Mrs.  Willemott  will  receive  you 
with  pleasure,  I'm. sure.  You  shall  see  my  two  girls." 

I  consented.  The  chaise  stopped  at  a  splendid  mansion, 
and  I  was  ushered  in  by  a  crowd  of  liveried  servants.  Every- 
thing M'as  on  the  most  sumptuous  and  magnificent  scale 
2()G 


THE  WAY  TO   BE   HAPPY 

Having  paid  my  respects  to  the  lady  of  the  house,  I  retired 
to  dress,  as  dinner  was  nearly  ready,  it  being  then  half-past 
seven  o'clock.  It  was  eight  before  we  sat  down.  TJ  an 
observation  that  I  made,  expressing  a  hope  that  I  had  not 
occasioned  the  dinner  being  put  off,  Willemott  replied,  "  On 
the  contrary,  my  dear  Reynolds,  we  never  sit  down  until 
about  this  hour.  How  people  can  dine  at  four  or  five  o'clock, 
I  cannot  conceive.  I  could  not  touch  a  mouthful." 

The  dinner  was  excellent,  and  I  paid  the  encomiums  which 
were  its  due. 

"  Do  not  be  afraid,  my  dear  fellow — my  cook  is  an  artiste 
extraordinaire — a  regular  Cordon  Bleu.  You  may  eat  any- 
thing without  fear  of  indigestion.  How  people  can  live  upon 
the  English  cookery  of  the  present  day,  I  cannot  conceive. 
I  seldom  dine  out,  for  fear  of  being  poisoned.  Depend  upon 
it,  a  good  cook  lengthens  your  days,  and  no  price  is  too  great 
to  insure  one." 

When  the  ladies  retired,  being  alone,  we  entered  into 
friendly  conversation.  I  expressed  my  admiration  of  his 
daughters,  who  certainly  were  very  handsome  and  elegant 
girls. 

"Very  true;  they  are  more  than  passable,"  replied  he. 
"  We  have  had  many  offers,  but  not  such  as  come  up  to  my 
expectations.  Baronets  are  cheap  nowadays,  and  Irish  lords 
are  nothings  ;  I  hope  to  settle  them  comfortably.  We  shall 
see.  Try  this  claret :  you  will  find  it  excellent,  not  a  head- 
ache in  a  hogshead  of  it.  How  people  can  drink  port,  I 
cannot  imagine. 

The  next  morning  he  proposed  that  I  should  rattle  round 
the  park  with  him.  I  acceded,  and  we  set  off  in  a  handsome 
open  carriage,  with  four  greys,  ridden  by  postillions  at  a  rapid 
pace.  As  we  were  whirling  along,  he  observed,  "  In  town 
•we  must  of  course  drive  but  a  pair,  but  in  the  country  I  never 
go  out  without  four  horses.  There  is  a  spring  in  four  horses 
which  is  delightful  ;  it  makes  your  spirits  elastic,  and  you  feel 
that  the  poor  animals  are  not  at  hard  labour.  Rather  than 
not  drive  four,  I  would  prefer  to  stay  at  home." 

Our  ride  was  very  pleasant,  and  in  such  amusements  passed 

away  one  of  the  most  pleasant  weeks  that  I  ever  remembered. 

Willemott  was  not  the  least  altered— he  was  as  friendly,  as 

sincere,  as  open-hearted  as  when  a  boy  at  school.       I  left 

267 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

him,  pleased  with  his  prosperity,  and  acknowledging  that  he 
was  well  deserving  of  it,  although  his  ideas  had  assumed  such 
a  scale  of  magnificence. 

I  went  to  India  when  my  leave  expired,  and  was  absent 
about  four  years.  On  my  return,  I  inquired  after  my  friend 
Willemott,  and  was  told  that  his  circumstances  and  expec- 
tations had  been  greatly  altered.  From  many  causes,  such 
as  a  change  in  the  Government,  a  demand  for  economy,  and 
tlie  wording  of  his  contracts  having  been  differently  rendered 
from  what  Willemott  had  supposed  their  meaning  to  be, 
large  items  had  been  struck  out  of  his  balance-sheet,  and 
instead  of  being  a  millionnaire,  he  was  now  a  gentleman  with 
a  handsome  property.  Belem  Castle  had  been  sold,  and  he 
now  lived  at  Richmond,  as  hospitable  as  ever,  and  was  con- 
sidered a  great  addition  to  the  neighbourhood.  I  took  the 
earliest  opportunity  of  going  down  to  see  him. 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Reynolds,  this  is  really  kind  of  you  to  come 
without  invitation.  Your  room  is  ready,  and  bed  well  aired, 
for  it  was  slept  in  three  nights  ago.  Come — Mrs.  Willemott 
will  be  delighted  to  see  you." 

I  found  the  girls  still  unmarried,  but  they  were  yet  young. 
The  whole  family  appeared  as  contented  and  happy  and  as 
friendly  as  before.  We  sat  down  to  dinner  at  six  o'clock  ; 
the  footman  and  coachman  attended.  The  dinner  was  good, 
but  not  by  the  artiste  extraordinaire.  I  praised  everything. 

"Yes,"  replied  he,  "she  is  a  very  good  cook;  she  unites 
the  solidity  of  the  English  with  the  delicacy  of  "the  French 
fare  ;  and,  altogether,  I  think  it  a  decided  improvement.  Jane 
is  quite  a  treasure."  After  dinner,  he  observed,  "  Of  course 
you  know  I  have  sold  Belem  Castle,  and  reduced  my  establish- 
ment. Government  have  not  treated  me  fairly,  but  I  am  at 
the  mercy  of  commissioners,  and  a  body  of  men  will  do  that 
which,  as  individuals,  they  would  be  ashamed  of.  The  fact 
is,  the  odium  is  borne  by  no  one  in  particular,  and  it  is  only 
the  sense  of  shame  which  keeps  us  honest,  I  am  afraid. 
However,  here  you  see  me,  with  a  comfortable  fortune,  and 
always  happy  to  see  my  friends,  especially  my  old  school- 
fellow. Will  you  take  port  or  claret  ?  the  port  is  very  fine, 
and  so  is  the  claret.  By-the-bye,  do  you  know — I'll  let  you 
into  a  family  secret ;  Louisa  is  to  be  married  to  a  Colonel 
Wilier — an  excellent  match !  It  has  made  us  all  happy." 
2C8 


THE  WAY  TO   BE  HAPPY 

The  next  day  we  drove  out,  not  in  an  open  carriage  as 
before,  but  in  a  chariot  and  with  a  pair  of  horses. 

"  These  are  handsome  horses,"  observed  I. 

"  Yes,"  replied  he,  "  I  am  fond  of  good  horses ;  and,  as  1 
only  keep  a  pair,  I  have  the  best.  There  is  a  certain  degree 
of  pretension  in  four  horses  I  do  not  much  like — it  appears 
as  if  you  wished  to  overtop  your  neighbours." 

I  spent  P  few  very-  pleasant  days,  and  then  quitted  his 
hospitable  roof.  A  severe  cold,  caught  that  winter,  induced 
me  to  take  the  advice  of  the  physicians,  and  proceed  to  the 
south  of  France,  where  I  remained  two  years.  On  my 
return,  I  was  informed  that  Willemott  had  speculated,  and 
had  been  unlucky  on  the  Stock  Exchange  ;  that  he  had  left 
Richmond,  and  was  now  living  at  Clapham.  The  next  day  I 
met  him  near  the  Exchange. 

"  Reynolds !  I  am  happy  to  see  you.  Thompson  told  me 
that  you  had  come  back.  If  not  better  engaged,  come  down 
to  see  me  ;  I  will  drive  you  down  at  four  o'clock,  if  that 
will  suit." 

It  suited  me  very  well,  and  at  four  o'clock  I  met  him, 
according  to  appointment,  at  a  lively  stables  over  the  lion 
Bridge.  His  vehicle  was  ordered  out ;  it  was  a  phaeton  drawn 
by  two  long-tailed  ponies — altogether  a  very  neat  concern. 
We  set  off  at  a  rapid  pace. 

"  They  step  out  well,  don't  they  ?  We  shall  be  down  in 
plenty  of  tim«  to  put  on  a  pair  of  shoes  by  five  o'clock,  which 
is  our  dinner-time.  Late  dinners  don't  agree  with  me — they 
produce  indigestion.  Of  course  you  know  that  Louisa  has 
a  little  boy." 

I  did  not ;  but  congratulated  him. 

"Yes,  and  has  now  gone  out  to  India  wii.li  her  husband. 
Mary  is  also  engaged  to  be  married — a  very  good  match — a 
Mr.  Rivers,  in  the  law.  He  has  been  called  to  the  bar  this 
year,  and  promises  well.  They  will  be  a  little  pinched  at 
first,  but  we  must  see  what  we  can  do  for  them." 

We  stopped  at  a  neat  row  of  houses,  I  forget  the  name, 
and  as  we  drove  up,  the  servant,  the  only  man-servant,  came 
out,  and  took  the  ponies  round  to  the  stable,  while  the  maid 
received  my  luggage,  and  one  or  two  paper-bags,  containing 
a  few  extras  for  the  occasion.  I  was  met  with  the  same 
warmth  as  usual  by  Mrs.  Willemott.  The  house  was  small. 


OLLA    PODR1DA 

but  very  neat ;  the  remnants  of  former  grandeur  appeared 
here  and  there,  in  one  or  two  little  articles,  favourites  of  the 
lady.  We  sat  down  at  five  o'clock  to  a  plain  dinner,  and 
were  attended  by  the  footman,  who  had  rubbed  down  the 
ponies  and  pulled  on  his  livery. 

"  A  good  plain  cook  is  the  best  thing,  after  all,"  observed 
Willemott.  "  Your  fine  cooks  won't  condescend  to  roast 
and  boil.  Will  you  take  some  of  this  sirloin,  the  under-cut 
is  excellent.  My  dear,  give  Mr.  Reynolds  some  Yorkshire 
pudding." 

When  we  were  left  alone  after  dinner,  Willemott  told  me, 
very  unconcernedly,  of  his  losses. 

"  It  was  my  own  fault,"  said  he  ;  "I  wished  to  make  up  a 
little  sum  for  the  girls,  and  risking  what  they  would  have 
had,  I  left  them  almost  penniless.  However,  we  can  always 
command  a  bottle  of  port  and  a  beefsteak,  and  what  more 
in  this  world  can  you  have  ?  Will  you  take  port  or  white  ? — 
I  have  no  claret  to  offer  you." 

We  finished  our  port,  but  I  could  perceive  no  difference 
in  Willemott.  He  was  just  as  happy  and  as  cheerful  as 
ever.  He  drove  me  to  town  the  next  day.  During  our 
drive  he  observed,  "  I  like  ponies,  they  are  so  little  trouble  ; 
and  I  prefer  them  to  driving  one  horse  in  this  vehicle,  as 
I  can  put  my  wife  and  daughters  into  it.  It's  selfish  to 
keep  a  carriage  for  yourself  alone,  and  one  horse  in  a  four- 
wheeled  double  chaise  appears  like  an  imposition  upon  the 
poor  animal." 

I  went  to  Scotland,  and  remained  about  a  year.  On  my 
return,  I  found  that  my  friend  Willemott  had  again  shifted  his 
quarters.  He  was  at  Brighton  ;  and  having  nothing  better  to 
do,  I  put  myself  in  the  "  Times,"  and  arrived  at  the  Bedford 
Hotel.  It  was  not  until  after  some  inquiry  that  I  could  find 
out  his  address.  At  last  I  obtained  it,  in  a  respectable  but 
not  fashionable  part  of  this  overgrown  town.  Willemott 
received  me  just  as  before. 

"  I  have  no  spare  bed  to  offer  you,  but  you  must  breakfast 
and  dine  with  us  every  day.  Our  house  is  small,  but  it's  very 
comfortable,  and  Brighton  is  a  very  convenient  place.  You 
know  Mary  is  married.  A  good  place  in  the  courts  was  for 
sale,  and  my  wife  and  I  agreed  to  purchase  it  for  Rirers.  It 
has  reduced  us  u  little,  but  they  are  very  comfortable.  I  have 
270 


THE  WAY  TO  BE  HAPPY 

retired  from  business  altogether ;  in  fact,  as  my  daughters  arc 
both  married,  and  we  have  enough  to  live  upon,  what  can  we 
wish  for  more  ?  Brighton  is  very  gay,  and  always  healthy ; 

and  as  for  carriage  and  horses,  they  are  no  use  here there 

arejlies  at  every  corner  of  the  streets." 

I  accepted  his  invitation  to  dinner.  A  parlour-maid 
waited,  but  everything,  although  very  plain,  was  clean  and 
comfortable. 

"  I  have  still  a  bottle  of  wine  for  a  friend,  Reynolds,"  said 
Willemott,  after  dinner ;  "  but,  for  my  part,  I  prefer  trhisky- 
toddy—it  agrees  with  me  better.  Here's  to  the  health  of  my 
two  girls,  God  bless  them,  and  success  to  them  in  life  !  " 

"  My  dear  Willemott,"  said  I,  "  I  take  the  liberty  of  an  old 
friend,  but  I  am  so  astonished  at  your  philosophy,  that  I 
cannot  help  it  When  I  call  to  mind  Belem  Castle,  your 
large  establishment,  your  luxuries,  your  French  cook,  and  your 
stud  of  cattle,  I  wonder  at  your  contented  state  of  mind  under 
such  a  change  of  circumstances." 

"  I  almost  wonder  myself,  my  dear  fellow,"  replied  he.  "  I 
never  could  have  believed,  at  that  time,  that  I  could  live 
happily  under  such  a  change  of  circumstances ;  but  the  fact 
is,  that,  although  I  have  been  a  contractor,  I  have  a  good 
conscience  ;  then  my  wife  is  an  excellent  woman,  and  pro- 
vided she  sees  me  and  her  daughters  happy,  thinks  nothing 
about  herself;  and,  further,  I  have  made  it  a  rule,  as  I 
have  been  going  down  hill,  to  find  reasons  why  I  should  be 
thankful,  and  not  discontented.  Depend  upon  it,  Reynolds, 
it  is  not  a  loss  of  fortune  which  will  affect  your  happiness, 
as  long  as  you  have  peace  and  love  at  home." 

I  took  my  leave  cf  Willemott  and  his  wife,  with  respect 
as  well  as  regard ;  convinced  that  there  was  no  pretended 
indifference  to  worldly  advantages ;  that  it  was  not  that  the 
grapes  were  sour,  but  that  he  had  learned  the  whole  art  of 
happiness,  by  being  contented  with  what  he  had,  and  by 
"  cutting  his  coat  according  to  his  cloth." 


S71 


HOW  TO  WRITE  A  FASHIONABLE 
NOVEL 


SCENE  — Chamber  in  Lincoln's  Inn.  ARTHUR  ANSARD  at  a 
briefless  table,  tete-a-tete  with  his  wig  on  a  block.  A.  casts 
a  disconsolate  look  upon  his  companion,  and  soliloquises. 

1  ES,  there  you  stand,  "  partner  of  my  toils,  my  feelings, 
and  my  fame."  We  do  not  suit,  for  we  never  gained  a  suit 
together.  Well,  what  with  reporting  for  the  bar,  writing  for 
the  Annuals  and  the  Pocket-books,  I  shall  be  able  to  meet 
all  demands  except  those  of  my  tailor ;  and,  as  his  bill  is 
most  characteristically  long,  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  make 
it  stretch  over  till  next  term,  by  which  time  I  hope  to  fulfil 
my  engagements  with  Mr.  C.,  who  has  given  me  an  order 
for  a  fashionable  novel,  written  by  a  "  nobleman."  But  how 
I,  who  was  never  inside  of  an  aristocratical  mansion  in  my 
life,  whose  whole  idea  of  Court  is  comprised  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench,  am  to  complete  my  engagement,  I  know  no 
more  than  my  companion  opposite,  who  looks  so  placidly 
stupid  under  my  venerable  wig.  As  far  as  the  street  door, 
the  footman  and  carriage,  and  the  porter  arc  concerned,  I 
can  manage  well  enough  ;  but  as  to  what  occurs  within  doors 
I  am  quite  abroad.  I  shall  never  get  through  the  first 
chapter ;  yet  that  tailor's  bill  must  be  paid.  (Knocking  outside.) 
Come  in,  I  pray. 

Enter  BARNSTAPLE. 

B.  Merry  Christmas  to  you,  Arthur. 

A.  Sit  down,  my  dear  fellow;  but  don't  mock  me  with 
merry   Christmas.      He   emigrated   long  ago.      Answer  me 
£72 


HOW  TO   WRITE   A  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL 

seriously:  do  you   think  it  possible  for  a  man  to  describe 
what  he  never  saw  ? 

B.  (putting  his  stick  up  to  his  chin).     Why,  'tis  possible  ;  but 
I  would  not  answer  for  the  description  being  quite  correct. 

A.  But  suppose  the  parties  who  read  it  have  never  seen 
the  thing  described  ? 

B.  Why  then  it  won't  signify  whether  the  description  be 
correct  or  not. 

A.  You  have  taken  a  load  off  my  mind ;  but  still  I  am  not 
quite  at  ease.     I  have  engaged  to  furnish  C.  with  a  fashion- 
able novel. 

B.  What  do  you  mean  to  imply  by  a  fashionable  novel  ? 

A.  I  really  can  hardly  tell.     His  stipulations  were,  that  it 
was  to  be  a  "fashionable  novel  in  three  volumes,  each  volume 
not  less  than  three  hundred  pages." 

B.  That  is  to  say,  that  you  are  to  assist  him  in  imposing 
on  the  public. 

A.  Something  very  like   it,    I'm    afraid;    as   it   is   further 
agreed  that  it  is  to  be  puifed  as  coming  from  a  highly  talented 
nobleman. 

B.  You  should  not  do  it,  Ansard. 

A,  So  conscience  tells  me,  but  my  tailor's  bill  says  Yes ; 
and  that  is  a  thing  out  of  all  conscience.     Only  look  here. 

[Disp/ai/s  a  long  bill. 

B.  Why,  I  must  acknowledge,  Ansard,  that  there  is  some 
excuse.     One  needs  must,  when  the  devil  drives ;  but  you 
are  capable  of  better  things. 

A.  I  certainly  don't  feel   great  capability  in  this  instance. 
But  what  can  I  do  ?     The  man  will  have  nothing  else — he 
says  the  public  will  read  nothing  else. 

B.  That  is   to  say,  that  because  one  talented  author  as- 
tonished the  public  by  style  and  merits  peculiarly  his  own, 
and  established,  as  it  were,  a  school  for  neophytes,  his  popu- 
larity is  to  be  injured  by  contemptible  imitators.     It  is  suffi- 
cient to  drive  a  man  mad,  to  find  that  the  tinsel  of  others,  if 
to  be  purchased   more   cheaply,  is  to   be   palmed   upon  the 
public  instead  of  his  gold  ;  and  more  annoying  still;  that  the 
majority  of  the  public  cannot  appreciate  the  difference  be- 
tween the  metal  and  the  alloy.     Do  you  know,  Ansard,  that 
by  getting  up  this  work,  you  really  injure  the  popularity  of  a 
man  of  great  talent  ? 

273  8 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

A.  Will  he  pay  ray  tailor's  bill  ? 

B,  No ;  I  daresay  he  has  enough  to  do  to  pay  his  own. 
What  does  your  tailor  say  ? 

A.  He  is  a  stanch  reformer,  and  on  March  the  1st  he  de- 
clares that  he  will  have  the  bill,  the  whole  bill,  and  nothing 
but  the  bill — carried  to  my  credit.     Mr.  C.,  on  the   10th  of 
February,  also  expects  the  novel,  the  whole  novel,  and  nothing 
but  the  novel,  and  that  must  be  a  fashionable  novel.     Look 
here,  Barnstaple.     (Shows  his  tailor  s  bill.) 

B.  I  see  how  it  is.     He  "  pays  your  poverty,  and  not  your 
will." 

A.  And  by  your  leave,  I  thus  must  pay  my  bill  (bowing). 

B.  Well,  well,  I  can  help  you :  nothing  more  difficult  than 
to  write  a  good  novel,  and  nothing  more  easy  than  to  write  a 
bad  one.     If  I  were  not  above  the  temptation,  I  could  pen 
you  a  dozen  of  the  latter  every  ordinary  year,  and  thirteen, 
perhaps,  in  the  bissextile.     So  banish  that  Christmas  cloud 
from  your  brow  ;  leave  off  nibbling  your  pen  at  the  wrong 
end,  and  clap  a  fresh  nib  to  the  right  one.     I  have  an  hour 
to  spare. 

A.  I  thank  you  :  that  spare  hour  of  yours  may  save  me 
many  a  spare  day.      I'm  all  attention — proceed. 

B.  The  first  point  to  be  considered  is  the  tempus,  or  time ; 
the  next  the  locus,  or  place ;  and  lastly  the  dramatis  personce  ; 
and  thus,  chapter  upon  chapter,  will  you  build  a  novel. 

A.  Build! 

B.  Yes,  build;  you  have  had  your  dimensions  given,  the 
interior  is   left  to  your  own    decoration.      First,   as  to    the 
opening.      Suppose  we  introduce  the  hero  in  his  dressing- 
room.     We  have  something  of  the  kind  in  "  Pelham  ;"  and 
if  we  can't  copy  his  merits,  we  must  his  peculiarities.     Be- 
sides, it  always  is  effective  :  a  dressing-room  or  boudoir  of 
supposed  great  people,  is  admitting  the  vulgar  into  the  arcana 
which  they  delight  in. 

A.  Nothing  can  be  better. 

B.  Then,  as  to  time  ;  as  the  hero  is  still  in  bed,  suppose 
we  say  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  ? 

A.  In  the  morning  you  mean. 

B.  No ;  the   afternoon.       I    grant   you    that    fashionable 
young  men  in  real  life  get  up  much  about  the  same  time  as 
pther  people ;  but  in  a  fashionable  novel  your  real  exclusive 

87* 


HOW  TO  WRITE   A   FASHIONABLE  NOVEL- 

never  rises  early.  The  very  idea  makes  the  tradesman's  wife 
lift  up  her  eyes.  So  begin.  "It  was  about  thirty-three 
minutes  after  four,  post  meridian " 

A.  Minute — to  a  minute  ! 

B.  "That    the    Honourable    Augustus    Bouverie's    finely 
chiselled " 

A.  Chiselled! 

B.  Yes  great  people  are  always  chiselled,  common  people 
are  only  cast. — "  Finely  chiselled  head  was  still  recumbent 
upon  his  silk-encased  pillow.     His   luxuriant  and  Antinous- 
like  curls  were  now  confined  in  papillotes  of  the  finest  satin 
paper,  and  the  tout  ensemble  of  his  head — 

A.  Tout  ensemble  ! 

B.  Yes ;  go  on. — "Was  gently  compressed  by  a  caul  of  the 
finest   network,    composed    of    the    threads    spun    from    the 
beauteous  production  of  the  Italian  worm." 

A.  Ah  !  now  I  perceive — a  silk  nightcap.     But  why  can't 
I  say  at  once  a  silk  nightcap  ? 

B.  Because  you  are  writing  a  fashionable  novel. — "  With 
the  forefinger  of  his  gloved  left  hand — 

A.  But  he's  not  coming  in  from  a  walk — he's  not  yet  out 
of  bed. 

B.  You  don't  understand  it. — "  Gloved  left  hand  he  ap- 
plied a  gentle  friction  to  the  portal  of  his  right  eye,  which 
unclosing  at  the  silent  summons,   enabled  him   to  perceive 
a  repeater  studded  with   brilliants,  and  ascertain  the   exact 
minute  of  time,  which  we  have  already  made  known  to  the 
reader,  and  at  which  our  history  opens." 

A,  A  very  grand  opening  indeed  ! 

B.  Not  more  than  it  ought  to  be  for  a  fashionable  novel. — . 
u  At  the  sound  of  a  silver  clochette,  his  faithful  Swiss  valet 
Coridon,  who  had   for  some   time  been   unperceived  at   the 
door,  waiting  for  some  notice  of  his  master  having  thrown  off 
the  empire   of  Somnus,   in  his   light    pumps,   covered    with 
beaver,  moved  with  noiseless   step  up   to  the  bedside,  like 
the  advance  of  eve  stealing  over  the  face  of  nature." 

A.  Rather  an  incongruous  simile. 

B.  Not  for  a  fashionable  novel.  — "  There   he    stood,  like 
Taciturnity  bowing  at  the  feet  of  proud  Authority." 

A.  Indeed,  Barnstaple,  that  is  too  outre. 

B.  Not  a  whit ;  I  am  in  the   true  "  Cambyses'  vein."— » 

275 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  Condon  having  softly  withdrawn  the  rose-coloured  gros 
de  Naples  bed  curtains,  which  by  some  might  have  been 
thought  to  have  been  rather  too  extravagantly  fringed  with 
the  finest  Mechlin  lace,  exclaimed  with  a  tone  of  tremulous 
deference  and  affection,  '  Monsieur  a  bien  dorini  ? '  '  Condon,' 
said  the  Honourable  Augustus  Bouverie,  raising  himself 
on  his  elbow  in  that  eminently  graceful  attitude  for  which 
he  was  so  remarkable  when  reclining  on  the  ottomans  at 
Almack's " 

A.  Are  you  sure  they  have  ottomans  there  ? 

B.  No;  but  your  readers  can't  disprove  it. — "'Coridon,' 
said   he,    surveying  his    attendant    from    head    to    foot,   and 
ultimately    assuming    a    severity   of  countenance,    '  Coridon, 
you  are  becoming  gross,  if  not   positively  what  the   people 
csiUfot.'      The  Swiss  attendant  fell  back  in  graceful  astonish- 
ment three  steps,  and  arching  his  eyebrows,  extending  his 
inverted  palms  forward,  and  raising  his  shoulders  above  the 
apex   of  his   head,   exclaimed,  'Pardon,  milor,  fen  aurais  un 
horreur  par  fait.'    ( I  tell  you,'  replied  our  gracefully  recumbent 
hero,  '  that  it  is  so,  Coridon  ;  and  I  ascribe  it  to  your  par- 
tiality for  that  detestable  wine  called  Port.     Confine  yourself 
to   Hock  and    Moselle,  sirrah :  I   fear  me,  you   have  a  base 
hankering    after    mutton    and    beef.        Restrict   yourself   to 
salads,   and  do  not  sin   even   with   an   omelette   more   than 
once  a  week.     Coridon  must  be   visionary   and   diaphanous, 
or   he   is   no   Coridon   for   me.       Remove   my  night-gloves, 
and  assist  me  to  rise :  it  is  past   four  o'clock,  and  the   sun 
must   have,  by  this  time,  sufficiently   aired   this   terrestrial 
globe.' " 

A.  I  have  it  now ;  I  feel  I  could  go  on  for  an  hour. 

B.  Longer   than    that,    before    you    get    him    out    of   his 
dressing-room.       You    must    make    at    least    five    chapters 
before  he  is  apparelled,  or  how  _can  you  write  a  fashionable 
novel,  in  which  you  cannot  afford  more  than  two  incidents 
in  the  three   volumes  ?      Two  are  absolutely  necessary  for 

the  editor  of  the Gazette  to   extract   as  specimens, 

before  he  winds  up  an  eulogy.      Do  you  think  that  you  can 
proceed  now  for  a  week  without  my  assistance  ? 

A.  I  think  so,  if  you  will  first  give  me  some  general 
ideas.  In  the  first  place,  am  I  always  to  continue  in  this 
style  ? 

276 


HOW  TO   WRITE  A   FASHIONABLE   NOVEL 

B.  No ;  I  thought  you  knew  better.     You  must  throw  in 
patches  of  philosophy  every  now  and  then. 

A.  Philosophy  in  a  fashionable  novel  ? 

B.  Most    assuredly,    or    it    would    be    complained    of   as 
trifling  ;  but  a  piece,  now  and  then,  of  philosophy,  as  unin- 
telligible as  possible,  stamps  it  with  deep  thought.     In  the 
dressing-room,  or  boudoir,  it  must  be  occasionally  Epicurean  ; 
elsewhere,  especially  in  the  open  air,  more  Stoical. 

A.  I'm   afraid   that    I   shall   not    manage    that  without   a 
specimen  to  copy  from.     Now  I  think  of  it,  Eugene  Aram 
says  something  very  beautiful  on  a  starry  night. 

B.  He    does ;  it  is  one   of  the    most   splendid    pieces   of 
writing  in   our   language.     But   I  will   have  no  profanation, 
Arthur; — to    your    pen    again,    and    write.       We'll    suppose 
our  hero  to   have  retired  from  the  crowded  festivities  of  a 
ball-room   at   some   lordly   mansion   in   the   country,   and   to 
have   wandered   into  a  churchyard,  damp  and   dreary  with 
a  thick  London  fog.      In  the  light  dress  of  fashion,  he  throws 
himself  on  a  tombstone.      "  Ye  dead  !  "   exclaims   the   hero, 
"  where    are    ye  ?    Do   your   disembodied    spirits    now    float 
around   me,   and,   shrouded   in   this  horrible   veil   of  nature, 
glare  unseen  upon  vitality  ?     Float  ye  upon  this  intolerable 
mist,  in  yourself  still    more   misty  and   intolerable  ?      Hold 
ye   high  jubilee    to-night?   or  do   ye    crouch    behind    these 
monitorial    stones,    gibbering   and    chattering   at    one    who 
dares    thus    to    invade   your  precincts  ?     Here    may   I    hold 
communion   with    my   soul,   and,    in    the    invisible    presence 
of  those   who   could,   but   dare   not   to  reveal.      Away !  it 
must  not  be." 

A.  What  mustn't  be  ? 

B.  That   is  the    mystery  which   gives   the   point   to   his 
soliloquy.      Leave  it  to  the  reader's  imagination. 

A.  I    understand.       But    still    the    Honourable    Augustus 
cannot  lie  in   bed   much   longer,  and    I   really  shall  not  be 
able    to    get    him    out   without  your   assistance.     I    do    not 
comprehend  how  a  man  can  get  out  of  bed  gracefully ;  he 
must  show  his  bare  legs,  and  the  alteration  of  position  is  in 
itself  awkward. 

B.  Not  half  so  awkward  as  you  are.     Do  you  not  feel  that 
he  must  not  be  got  out  of  bed  at  all — that  is,  by  description. 

A.  How  then  ? 

277 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

B.  By  saying  nothing  about  it.  Recommence  as  follows  • 
etll  should  like  the  bath  at  seventy-six  and  a  half,  Cori- 
don/  observed  the  Honourable  Augustus  Bouverie,  as  he 
wrapped  his  embroidered  dressing-gown  round  his  elegant 
form,  and  sank  into  a  chaise  longue,  wheeled  by  his  faithful 
attendant  to  the  fire."  There,  you  observe,  he  is  out  of  bed, 
and  nothing  said  about  it 

A.  Go  on,  I  pray  thee. 

B.  "'How  is  the  bath  perfumed?'     '  Eau  de  milk  fours' 
'  Eau  de  mille  fieurs !     Did  not  I  tell  you  last  week  that  I 
was  tired  of  that  villainous  compound  ?     It  has  been  adulte- 
rated till  nothing  remains  but  its  name.     Get  me  another 
bath  immediately  a  la  violette ;  and,  Coridon,  you   may  use 
that  other  scent,  if  there  is  any  left,  for  the  poodle  ;   but 
observe,   only  when  you   take  him  an  airing,  not  when  he 
goes  with  me.' " 

A.  Excellent !     I  now  feel  the  real  merits  of  an  exclusive  ; 
but    you    said   something   about    dressing-room,   or   in-door 
philosophy. 

B.  I  did ;  and  now  is  a  good  opportunity  to  introduce  it. 
Coridon  goes  into  the  ante-chamber  to  renew  the  bath,  and 
of  course  your  hero  has  met  with  a  disappointment  in  not 
having  the  bath  to  his  immediate  pleasure.     He  must  press 
his  hands  to  his  forehead.      By-the-bye,  recollect  that  his  fore- 
head, when  you  describe  it,  must  be  high  and  white  as  snow ; 
all  aristocratical  foreheads  are — at  least,  are  in  a  fashionable 
novel. 

A.  What !  the  women's  and  all  ? 

B.  The  heroine's  must  be  :  the  others  you  may  lower  as  a 
contrast.     But  to  resume  with  the  philosophy.     He  strikes 
his  forehead,  lifts  his  eyes  slowly   up   to  the    ceiling,  and 
drops  his  right  arm  as  slowly  down  by  the  side  of  the  chaise 
longue ;  and  then  in  a  voice  so  low  that  it  might  have  been 
considered  a  whisper,  were  it  not  for  its  clear  and  brilliant 
intonation,  he  exclaims  — 

A.  Exclaims  in  a  whisper  ! 

B.  To  be  sure  :  you  exclaim  mentally  ;  why  should  you  not 
in  a  whisper  ? 

A.  I  perceive — your  argument  is  unanswerable. 

B.  Stop   a   moment ;    it   will    run    better    thus :     "  The 
Honourable   Augustus   Bouverie    no   sooner   perceived    him- 

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HOW  TO   WRITE  A   FASHIONABLE  NOVEL 

self  alone,  than  he  felt  the  dark  shades  of  melancholy 
ascending  and  brooding  over  his  mind,  and  enveloping  his 
throbbing  heart  in  their — their  adamantine  chains.  Yield- 
ing to  the  overwhelming  force,  he  thus  exclaimed,  'Such 
is  life  —  we  require  but  one  flower,  and  we  are  offered 
noisome  thousands — refused  that  we  wish,  we  live  in  loath- 
ing of  that  not  worthy  to  be  received — mourners  from 
our  cradle  to  our  grave,  we  utter  the  shrill  cry  at  our 
birth,  and  we  sink  in  oblivion  with  the  faint  wail  of 
terror.  Why  should  we,  then,  ever  commit  the  folly  to 
be  happy  ? '  " 

A.  Hang  me,  but  that's  a  poser ! 

B.  Nonsense  !  hold  your  tongue  ;  it  is  only  preparatory  to 
the   end.      " '  Conviction    astonishes    and    torments— destiny 
prescribes  and  falsifies — attraction  drives  us  away — humilia- 
tion  supports   our  energies.       Thus   do   we   recede   into  the 
present,  and  shudder  at  the  Elysium  of  posterity.'  " 

A.  I  have  written  that   down,  Barnstaple ;    but   I   cannot 
understand  it,  upon  my  soul ! 

B.  If  you    had    understood   one    particle,   that    particle    I 
would    have    erased.       This    is    your    true    philosophy    of    a 
fashionable    novel,   the    extreme    interest    of  which   consists 
in   its    being    unintelligible.      People   have    such   an  opinion 
of  their   own    abilities,    that    if  they   understood    you    they 
would  despise  you  ;  but  a  dose  like  this  strikes  them  with 
veneration  for  your  talents. 

A.  Your  argument  is   unanswerable ;   but  you  said  that  I 
must  describe  the  dressing-room. 

B.  Nothing   more   easy ;   as   a   simile,   compare    it    to   the 
shrine  of  some  favoured  saint  in  a  richly-endowed  Catholic 
church.     Three  tables   at   least,   full  of  materials  in  metho- 
dised   confusion — all    tending    to    the    beautification   of  the 
human  form   divine.     Tinted   perfumes   in   every   variety  of 
cut  crystal   receivers,  gold  and   silver.      If  at  a  loss,  call  at 
Bayley   and   Blew's,   or   Smith's   in   Bond   Street.      Take   an 
accurate   survey   of  all   you   see,   and   introduce   your  whole 
catalogue.     You   cannot   be   too   minute.     But,   Arthur,  you 
must  not  expect  me  to  write  the  whole  book  for  you. 

A.   Indeed   I  am  not  so   exorbitant   in  my  demands  upon 
your   good   nature ;    but   observe,    I    may   get    up   four   or 
five  chapters  already  with    the    hints   you  have  given  me. 
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OLLA   PODRIDA 

but  I  do  not  know  how  to  move  such  a  creation  of  the 
brain — so  ethereal,  that  I  fear  he  will  melt  away  ;  and  so 
fragile,  that  I  am  in  terror  lest  he  fall  to  pieces.  Now  only 
get  him  into  the  breakfast-room  for  me,  and  then  1  ask 
no  more  for  the  present.  Only  dress  him,  and  bring  him 


B.  There  again  you  prove  your  incapability.  Bring  him 
downstairs  '  Your  hero  of  a  fashionable  novel  never  ascends 
to  the  first  floor.  Bedroom,  dressing-room,  breakfast-room, 
library,  and  boudoir,  all  are  upon  a  level.  As  for  his  dressing, 
you  must  only  describe  it  as  perfect  when  finished  ;  but  not 
enter  into  a  regular  detail,  except  that,  in  conversation  with 
his  valet,  he  occasionally  asks  for  something  unheard-of, 
or  fastidious  to  a  degree.  You  must  not  walk  him  from  one 
chamber  to  another,  but  manage  it  as  follows :  "  It  was  not 
until  the  beautiful  airs  of  the  French  clock  that  decorated 
the  mantelpiece  had  been  thrice  played,  with  all  their 
variations,  that  the  Honourable  Augustus  Bouverie  entered 
his  library,  where  he  found  his  assiduous  Coridon  burning 
an  aromatic  pastille  to  disperse  the  compound  of  villainous 
exhalations  arising  from  the  condensed  metropolitan  atmo- 
sphere. Once  more  in  a  state  of  repose,  to  the  repeated 
and  almost  affecting  solicitations  of  his  faithful  attendant, 
who  alternately  presented  to  him  the  hyson  of  Pekoe,  the 
bohea  of  Twankay,  the  fragrant  berry  from  the  Asiatic  shore, 
and  the  frothing  and  perfumed  decoction  of  the  Indian  nut, 
our  hero  shook  his  head  in  denial,  until  he  at  last  was  pre- 
vailed upon  to  sip  a  small  liqueur  glass  of  eau  sucrte."  The 
fact  is,  Arthur,  he  is  in  love — don't  you  perceive  ?  Now 
introduce  a  friend,  who  rallies  him — then  a  resolution  to 
think  no  more  of  the  heroine — a  billet  on  a  golden  salver — 
a  counter  resolution — a  debate  which  equipage  to  order — a 
decision  at  last — hat,  gloves,  and  furred  greatcoat — and  by 
that  time  you  will  have  arrived  to  the  middle  of  the  first 
volume. 

A.  I  perceive  ;  but   I   shall  certainly  stick  there  without 
your  assistance. 

B.  You  shall  have  it,  my  dear  fellow.     In  a  week  I  will 
call  again,  and  see  how  you  get  on.     Then  we'll  introduce 
the  heroine  ;  that,  I  can  tell  you,  requires  some  tact — au 
revoir. 

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HOW  TO   WRITE  A  FASHIONABLE   NOVEL 

A.  Thanks,  many  thanks,  my  dear  Barnstaple.  Fare  you 
wel}  n  [Exit  BARNSTAPLE. 

A.  (looking  over  his  memoranda}.  It  will  do!  (Hoppin* 
and  dancing  about  the  room).  Hurrah!  my  tailor's  bill  wiU 
be  paid  after  all  1 


PART  II 

Mr.  ARTHUR  ANSARD'S  Chambers  as  before.  Mr.  ANSARD  with 
his  eijcs  fixed  upon  the  wig  block,  gnawing  the  feather  end  of 
his  pen.  The  table,  covered  with  sundry  sheets  oj' foolscap, 
shotvs  strong  symptoms  of  the  novel  progressing. 

ANSARD  (solus}. 

Where  is  Barnstaple  ?  If  he  do  not  come  soon,  I  shall 
have  finished  my  novel  without  a  heroine.  Well,  I'm  not 
the  first  person  who  has  been  foiled  by  a  woman.  (Continues 
to  gnaw  his  pen  in  a  brown  study.) 

BARNSTAPLE  enters  unperceived,  and  slaps  ANSARD  on  the 
shoulder.      The  latter  starts  up. 

B.  So,  friend  Ansard,  making  your  dinner  oft'  your  pen : 
it  is  not  every  novel-writer  who  can  contrive  to  do  that  even 
in  anticipation.  Have  you  profited  by  my  instructions  ? 

A.  I  wish  I  had.     I  assure  you  that  this  light  diet  has  not 
contributed,  as  might  be  expected,  to  assist  a  heavy  head ; 
and  one  feather  is  not  sufficient  to  enable  my  genius  to  take 
wing.      If  the  public  knew  Avhat  dull  work  it  is  to  write  a 
novel,  they  would  not  be  surprised  at  finding  them  dull  read- 
ing.     Ex  nihilo  nihiljit.      Barnstaple,  I  am  at  the  very  bathos 
of  stupidity. 

B.  You   certainly  were    absorbed   when   I    entered,   for  I 
introduced  myself. 

A.  I  wish  you  had  introduced  another  personage  with  you 
• — you  would  have  been  doubly  welcome. 

B.  Who  is  that  ? 

A,  My  heroine.     I  have  followed  your  instructions  to  the 
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OLLA    PODRIDA 

letter.     My  hero  is  as  listless  as  I  fear  my  readers  will  be, 
and  he  is  not  yet  in  love.      In  fact,  he  is  only  captivated  with 
himself.     I  have  made  him  dismiss  Coridon. 
B.   Hah  !  how  did  you  manage  that  ? 

A.  He  was  sent  to  ascertain  the  arms  on  the  panel  of  a 
carriage.     In  his  eagerness  to  execute  his  master's  wishes, 
he  came  home  with  a  considerable  degree  of  perspiration  on 
his  brow,  for  which  offence  he  was  immediately  put  out  of 
doors. 

B.  Bravo — it  was  unpardonable — but  still 

A.  Oh  !     I  know  what  you  mean — that  is  all  arranged  ;  he 
has  an  annuity  of  one  hundred  pounds  per  annum. 

B.  My  dear  Ansard,  you  have  exceeded  my  expectations ; 
but  now  for  the  heroine. 

//.  Yes,  indeed  ;  help  me — for  I  have  exhausted  all  my 
powers. 

B.  It  certainly  requires  much  tact  to  present  your  heroine 
to  your  readers.  We  are  unfortunately  denied  what  the 
ancients  were  so  happy  to  possess, — a  whole  cortege  of 
divinities  that  might  be  summoned  to  help  any  great  person- 
age in,  or  the  author  out  of,  a  difficulty ;  but  since  we  cannot 
command  their  assistance,  like  the  man  in  the  play  who  forgot 
his  part,  we  will  do  without  it.  Now,  have  you  thought  of 
nothing  new,  for  we  must  not  plagiarise  even  from  fashionable 
novels  ? 

A.  I  have  thought — and  thought — and  can  find  nothing 
new,  unless  we  bring  her  in  in  a  whirlwind  :  that  has  not  yet 
been  attempted. 

B.  A  whirlwind  !    I  don't  know — that's  hazardous.    Never- 
theless, if  she  were  placed  on  a  beetling  cliff,  overhanging  the 
tempestuous  ocean,  lashing  the  rocks  with  its  wild  surge  ;  of 
a  sudden,  after  she  hus  been  permitted  to  finish  her  soliloquy, 
a   white    cloud    rising   rapidly    and    unnoticed — the    sudden 
vacuum — the  rush  of  mighty  winds  through  the  majestic  and 
alpine  scenery — the  vortex  gathering  round  her — first  admir- 
ing the  vast  efforts  of  nature ;   then  astonished  ;  and   lastly 
alarmed,  as  she  finds  herself  compelled  to  perform  involun- 
tary gyrations,  till   at   length   she   spins  round   like  a  well- 
whipped  top,  nearing  the  dangerous  edge   of  the  precipice. 
It  is  bold,  and    certainly  quite   novel — I    think    it   will   do. 
Portray  her  delicate  little  feet,  peeping  out,  pointing  down- 


HOW  TO  WRITE  A  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL 

wards,  the  force  of  the  elements  raising  her  on  her  tiptoes, 
now  touching,  now  disdaining  the  earth.  Her  dress  expanded 

wide  like  that  of  Herbele  in  her  last  and  best  pirouette 

round,  round  she  goes— he'r  white  arms  are  tossed  frantically 
in  the  air.  Corinne  never  threw  herself  into  more  graceful 
attitudes.  Now  is  seen  her  diminishing  ankle — now  the 
rounded  symmetry — mustn't  go  too  high  up,  though— the 
wind  increases — her  distance  from  the  edge  of  the  precipice 
decreases— she  has  no  breath  left  to  shriek — no  power  to  fall 
— threatened  to  be  ravished  by  the  wild  and  powerful  god  of 
the  elements— she  is  discovered  by  the  Honourable  Augustus 
Bouverie,  who  has  just  finished  his  soliloquy  upon  another 
adjacent  hill.  He  delights  in  her  danger — before  he  rushes 
to  her  rescue,  makes  one  pause  for  the  purpose  of  admiration, 
and  another  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  his  shirt  collar. 

A.  The  devil  he  does  ! 

B.  To  be   sure.     The   hero   of  a  fashionable   novel   never 
loses  caste.     Whether  in  a  storm,  a  whirlwind,  up  to  his  neck 
in  the  foaming  ocean,  or  tumbling  down  a  precipice,  he  is 
still  the  elegant  and  correct  Honourable  Augustus  Bouverie. 
To  punish  you  for  your  interruption,  I  have  a  great  mind  to 
make  him  take  a  pinch  of  snuff  before  he  starts.     Well — he 
flies  to  her  assistance — is  himself  caught  in  the  rushing  vortex, 
which  prevents  him  from   getting   nearer  to  the  lady,  and, 
despite  of  himself,  takes  to  whirling  in  the  opposite  direction. 
They    approach  —  they    recede  —  she    shrieks    without    being 
heard — holds  out  her  arms  for  help — she  would  drop  them  in 
despair,  but  cannot,  for  they  are  t\visled  over  her  head  by 
the  tremendous  force   of  the   element.      One  moment   they 
are  near  to  each  other,  and  the  next  they  are  separated  ;  at 
one  instant  they  are  close  to  the  abyss,  and  the  waters  below 
roar  in  delight  of  their  anticipated  victims,  and  in  the  next  a 
favouring  change  of  the  vortex  increases  their  distance  from 
the  danger — there  they  spin — and  there  you  may  leave  them, 
and  commence  a  new  chapter. 

A.  But  is  not  all  this  naturally  and  physically  impossible  ? 

B.  By  no    means ;    there    is    nothing    supernatural    in   a 
whirlwind,  and  the  effect  of  a  whirlwind  is  to  twist  every- 
thing round.     Why  should  the  heroine  and  the   Honourable 
Augustus  Bouverie  not  be  submitted  to  the  laws  of  nature  ? 
Besides,  we  are  writing  a  fashionable  novel.     WiJd  and  im- 

283 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

probable  as  this  whirlwind  may  appear,  it  is  within  the  range 
of  probability  ;  whereas,  that  is  not  at  all  adhered  to  in  many 

novels — witness  the  drinking  scene  in ,  and  others 

equally  outrces,  in  which  the  author,  having  turned  probability 
out  of  doors,  ends  by  throwing  possibility  out  of  the  window 
— leaving  folly  and  madness  to  usurp  their  place — and  play 
a  thousand  antics  for  the  admiration  of  the  public,  who, 
pleased  with  novelty,  cry  out,  "  How  fine ! " 

A.  Buy  the  book,  and  laud  the  author. 

B.  Exactly.      Now,    having   left   your   hero   and    heroine 
in    a    situation    peculiarly    interesting,    with    the    greatest 
nonchalance  pass  over  to  the  Continent,  rave  on  the  summit 
of  Mont  Blanc,  and  descant  upon  the  strata  which  compose 
the   Mountains  of  the  Moon  in  Central  Africa.     You  have 
been  philosophical,  now  you  must  be  geological.     No  one 
can  then  say  that  your  book  is  light  reading. 

A.  That   can   be  said  of  few  novels.     In  most  of  them 
even  smoke  assumes  the  ponderosity  of  lead. 

B.  There  is  a  metal   still  heavier,  which  they  have  the 
power  of  creating — gold — to  pay  a  dunning  tailor's  bill. 

A.  But  after  being  philosophical  and  geological,  ought  one 
not  to  be  a  little  moral  ? 

B.  Pshaw !  I   thought  you    had  more   sense.     The    great 
art  of  novel-writing  is  to  make  the  vices  glorious,  by  placing 
them  in  close  alliance  with   redeeming  qualities.     Depend 
upon  it,  Ansard,  there  is  a  deeper,  more  heartfelt  satisfaction 
than  mere  amusement  in  novel   reading — a  satisfaction  no 
less   real,    because    we   will   not   own    it    to   ourselves — the 
satisfaction    of    seeing    all    our    favourite    and    selfish    ideas 
dressed   up  in  a  garb  so  becoming  that  we  persuade  our- 
selves that  our  false   pride  is  proper  dignity,  our   ferocity 
courage,   our  cowardice  prudence,  our  irreligion    liberality, 
and  our  baser  appetites  mere  gallantry. 

A.  Very  true,  Barnstaple;  but  really  I   do  not  like  this 
whirlwind. 

B.  Well,  well,  I  give  it  up  then  ;  it  was  your  own  idea. 
We'll    try    again.       Cannot    you    create    some    difficulty    or 
dilemma,   in  which   to   throw  her,   so   that    the   hero   may 
come  to  her  res<*ue  with  eclat  ? 

A.  Her  grey  palfrey  takes  fright. 

B.  So  will  your  readers ;  stale — quite  stale ! 

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HOW  TO   WRITE   A   FASHIONABLE   NOVEL 

A.  A  wild  bull  has  his  horns   close   to  her,  and  is  about 
to  toss  her. 

B.  As  your  book  would  be — away  with  contempt.     Vapid 
— quite  vapid ! 

A.  A  shipwreck — the  waves  are  about  to  close  over  her. 

B.  Your  book   would   be    closed  at   the   same   moment 

worn  out — quite  worn  out. 

A.  In  the  dead  of  the  night  a   fire   breaks  out — she  is 
already  in  the  midst  of  the  flames — 

B.  Where    your   book    would    also   be    by    the    disgusted 
reader — worse  and  worse. 

A.  Confound  it !  you  will  not  allow  me  to  expose  her  to 
earth,  air,  fire,  or  water.      I  have  a  great  mind  to  hang  her  in 
her  garters,  and  make  the  hero  come  and  cut  her  down. 

B.  You  might  do  worse — and  better. 

A.  What— hang  myself  ? 

B.  That  certainly  would  put  an  end  to  all  your  difficulties. 
But,  Ansard,  I  think  I  can  put  your  heroine  in  a  situation 
really  critical  and  eminently  distressing,  and  the  hero  shall 
come  to  her  relief,  like  the  descent  of  a  god  to  the  rescue 
of  a  Greek  or  Trojan  warrior. 

A.  Of  of  Bacchus  to  Ariadne  in  her  distress. 

B.  Perhaps    a    better   simile.     The   consequence   will    be, 
that  eternal  gratitude  in  the  bosom  of  the  maiden  Avill  prove 
the  parent  of  eternal  love,  which  eternity  of  passion  will  of 
course  last  until  they  are  married. 

A.  I'm  all  attention. 

B.  Get  up  a  splendid  dinner-party   for   their  first  casual 
meeting.      Place  the  company  at  table. 

A.  Surely  you  are  not  going  to  choke  her  with  the  bone 
of  a  chicken. 

B.  You   surely  are   about   to   murder  me,  as   Samson  did 
the  Philistines — 

A.  With   the  jawbone   of  a   fashionable  novel-writer,  you 
mean. 

B.  Exactly.     But  to  proceed  : — they  are  seated  at  table : 
can  you  describe  a  grand  dinner  ? 

A.  Certainly,  I  have  partaken  of  more  than  one. 

B.  Where? 

A.  I   once   sat  down   three   hundred  strong  at  the   Free- 
masons'  Tavern. 

285 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

S.  Pshaw  !  a  mere  hog  feed. 

A.  Well,  then,  I  dined  with  the  late  lord  mayor. 

B.  Still   worse,   my  dear  Ansard.     It  is,  however,  of  no 
consequence.     Nothing  is  more  difficult  to  attain,  yet  nothing 
is  more  easy  to  describe,  than  a  good  dinner.     I  was  once 
reading  a  very  fashionable  novel  by  a  very  fashionable  book- 
seller, for  the  author  is  a  mere  nonentity,  and  was  very  much 
surprised   at  the  accuracy   with    which   a   good   dinner   was 
described.     The  mystery  was  explained  a  short   time  after- 
wards,  when   casually  taking  up   Eustache   Eude's   book  in 
Sams's  library,  I  found  that    the  author  had   copied  it  out 
exactly  from  the  injunctions  of  that  celebrated  gastronome. 
You  can  borrow  the  book. 

A.  Well,  we  will  suppose  that  done  ;  but  I  am  all  anxiety 
to  know  what  is  the  danger  from  which  the  heroine  is  to  be 
rescued. 

B.  I  will  explain.     There  are  two  species  of  existence — 
that  of  mere  mortal  existence,  which  is  of  little  consequence, 
provided,  like  Caesar,  the  hero  and  heroine  die  decently ;  the 
other  is  of  much  greater  consequence,  which  is  fashionable 
existence.     Let  them   once  lose  caste  in  that  respect,  and 
they  are  virtually  dead,  and  one  mistake,  one  oversight,  is  a 
death-blow  for  which  there  is  no  remedy,  and  from  which 
there   is  no  recovery.     For   instance,  we  will   suppose   our 
heroine  to  be  quite  confounded  with  the  appearance  of  our 
hero — to   have   become    distrnite,  reveuse — and,   in    short,    to 
have  lost  her  recollection  and  presence  of  mind.     She  has 
been  assisted  to  filet  de  soles.     Say  that  the  only  sauce  ever 
taken  with  them  is  au  macedoinc — this  is  offered  to  her,  and 
at  the  same  time  another,  which  to  eat  with  the  above  dish 
would  be  unheard  of.      In  her  distraction  she  is  about  to  take 
the  wrong  sauce — actually  at  the  point  of  ruining  herself  for 
ever  and  committing  suicide  upon  her  fashionable  existence, 
while  the  keen  grey  eyes  of  Sir  Antinous  Antibes,  the  arbiter 
of  fashion,    are    fixed    upon    her.     At    this    awful    moment, 
which  is  for  ever  to  terminate  her  fashionable  existence,  the 
Honourable  Augustus  Bouverie,  who  sits  next  to  her,  gently 
touches  her  sednlsante  sleeve — blandly  smiling,  he   whispers 
to  her  that  the  other  is  the  sauce  macedoine.     She  perceives 
her  mistake,  trembles  at  her  danger,  rewards  him   with  a 
smile,  which   penetrates    into   the   deepest   recesses   of  his 

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HOW  TO   WRITE  A  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL 

heart,  helps  herself  to  the  right  sauce,  darts  a  look  of  con- 
temptuous triumph  upon  Sir  Antinous  Antibes,  and,  while 
she  is  dipping  her  sole  into  the  sauce,  her  soul  expands  with 
gratitude  and  love. 

A.  I  see,  I  see.     Many  thanks ;  my  heroine  is  now  a  fan- 
counterpart  of  my  hero. 

"  Ah,  sure  a  pair  were  never  seen, 
So  justly  formed  to  meet  by  nature." 

B.  And  now  I'll  give  you  another  hint,  since  you  appear 
grateful.      It  is  a  species  of  clap-trap  in  a  novel  which  always 
takes- — to  wit,  a  rich  old  uncle  or  misanthrope,  who,  at  the 
very  time  that  he  is  bitterly  offended  and  disgusted  with  the 
hero,  who  is  in  awkward  circumstances,  pulls  out  a  pocket- 
book  and  counts  down  say  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  pounds 
in  bank-notes,  to  relieve  him  from  his  difficulties.     An  old 
coat  and  monosyllables  will  increase  the  interest. 

A.  True.     (Sighing.)     Alas  !    there  are  no    such  uncles  in 
real  life  ;  I  wish  there  were. 

B.  I  beg  your  pardon  ;  I  know  no  time  in  which  mi/  uncle 
forks  out  more  bank-notes  than  at  present. 

A.  Yes,  but  it  is  for  value,  or  more  than  value,  received. 

B.  That  I  grant ;  but  I  am  afraid  it  is  the  only  "  uncle " 
left    now  ;  except    in    a    fashionable    novel.     But   you    com- 
prehend the  value  of  this  new  auxiliary. 

A.  Nothing  can  be  better.     Barnstaple,  you  are  really. , 

but  I  say  no  more.     If  a  truly  great  man  cannot  be  flattered 
with  delicacy,  it  must  not  be  attempted  at  all ;  silence  then 
becomes  the  best  tribute.     Your  advice  proves  you  to  be  truly 
great.      I  am  silent,  therefore  you  understand  the  full  force 
of  the  oratory  of  my  thanks. 

B.  (bowing).     Well,    Ansard,    you    have    found    but    the 
cheapest   way   of  paying  off  your  bills  of  gratitude   I   ever 
heard  of.     "  Poor,  even  in  thanks,"  was  well  said   by  Shak- 
speare  ;  but  you,  it  appears,  are  rich  in  having  nothing  at  all 
wherewith  to  pay.     If  you  could  transfer  the  same  doctrine 
to  your  tradesmen,  you  need  not  write  novels. 

A.  Alas !  my  dear  fellow,  mine  is  not  yet  written.  There 
is  one  important  feature,  nay,  the  most  important  feature  of 
all — the  style  of  language,  the  diction— on  that,  Barnstaple, 
you  have  not  yet  doctrinated. 

287 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

B.  (pompously}.  When  Demosthenes  was  asked  what  were 
the  principal  attributes  of  eloquence,  he  answered,  that  the 
first  was  action ;  on  being  asked  which  was  the  second,  he 
replied  action  ;  and  the  third,  action  ;  and  such  is  the  idea 
of  the  Irish  numbers  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Now  there 
are  three  important  requisites  in  the  diction  of  a  fashionable 
novel.  The  first,  my  dear  fellow,  is  flippancy  ;  the  second, 
flippancy ;  and  flippancy  is  also  the  third.  With  the  dull  it 
will  pass  for  wit,  with  some  it  will  pass  for  scorn,  and  even 
the  witty  will  not  be  enabled  to  point  out  the  difference, 
without  running  the  risk  of  being  considered  invidious.  It 
will  cover  every  defect  with  a  defect  still  greater ;  for  who 
can  call  small-beer  tasteless  when  it  is  sour,  or  dull  when  it 
is  bottled  and  has  a  froth  upon  it  ? 

A.  The  advice  is  excellent;  but  I  fear  that  this  flippancy 
is  as  difficult  to  acquire  as  the  tone  of  true  eloquence. 

B.  Difficult !     I  defy  the  writers  of  the  silver-fork  school 
to  write  out  of  the  style  flippant.      Read  but  one  volume  of 

,  and  you  will  be  saturated  with  it ;  but  if  you  wish  to 

go  to  the  fountain-head,  do  as  have  done  most  of  the  late 
fashionable    novel-writers,    repair    to    their    instructors — the 
lady's-maid,  for  flippancy  in  the  vein  spirituelle  !  to  a  London 
footman  for  the  vein  critical ;  but  if  you  wish  a  flippancy  of 
a  still  higher  order,  at  once  more  solemn  and  more  empty, 
which  I  would  call  the  vein  political,  read  the  speeches  of 
some   of  our  members  of  Parliament.     Only   read   them — I 
wish  no  man  so  ill  as  to  inflict  upon  him  the  torture  of  hear- 
ing them — read  them,   I  say,  and  you  will  have  taken  the 
very  highest  degree  in  the  order  of  inane  flippancy, 

A.  I  see  it  at  once.      Your  observations  are  as   true  as 
they  are  severe.     When  we  would  harangue  geese,  we  must 
condescend  to  hiss ;    but   still,  my  dear   Barnstaple,  though 
you  have  fully  proved  to  me  that  in  a  fashionable  novel  all 
plot  is  unnecessary,  don't  you  think  there  ought  to  be  a  catas- 
trophe, or  sort  of  a  kind  of  an  end  to  the  work,  or  the  reader 
may  be  brought  up  short,  or,  as  the  sailors  say,  "all  standing/' 
when  he  comes  to  the  word  "  Finis,"  and  exclaim  with  an 
air  of  stupefaction — "  And  then " 

B.  And  then,  if  he  did,  it  would  be  no  more  than  the  fool 
deserved.     I  don't  know  whether  it  would  not  be  advisable 
to  leave  off  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  of  a  word,  nay  of  a 

288 


HOW  TO  WRITE  A   FASHIONABLE   NOVEL 

syllable,  if  it  be  possible :  I  am  sure  the  winding  up  would 
be  better  than  the  lackadaisical  running  down  of  most  of  the 
fashionable  novels.  Snap  the  mainspring  of  your  watch,  and 
none  but  an  ass  can  expect  you  to  tell  by  it  what  it  is 
o'clock  ;  snap  the  thread  of  your  narrative  in  the  same  way, 
and  he  must  be  an  unreasonable  being  who  would  expect 
a  reasonable  conclusion.  Finish  thus,  in  a  case  of  delicate 
distress ;  say,  "  The  Honourable  Mr.  Augustus  Bouverie  was 
struck  in  a  heap  with  horror.  He  rushed  with  a  frantic 
grace,  a  deliberate  haste,  and  a  graceful  awkwardness,  and 
whispered  in  her  ear  these  dread  and  awful  words,  '  IT  is 
TOO  LATE  ! '  "  Follow  up  with  a and  Finis. 

A.  I  see  ;  the  fair  and  agitated  reader  will  pass  a  sleepless 
night  in  endeavouring  to  decipher  the  mutilated  sentence. 
She   will  fail,  and,   consequently,   call   the  book   delightful. 
But  should  there  not  have  been  a  marriage  previously  to  this 
happy  awful  climax  ? 

B.  Yes;  everything  is  arranged  for  the  nuptials — carriages 
are  sent  home,  jewellery  received  but  not  paid  for,  dresses 
all  tried  on,  the  party  invited — nay,  assembled  in  the  blue- 
and-white  drawing-room.     The  right  reverend  my  lord  bishop 
is  standing  behind  the  temporary  altar — he   has   wiped   his 
spectacles  and  thumbed  his  prayer-book — all  eyes  are  turned 
towards  the  door,  which  opens  not — the  bride  faints,  for  the 
bridegroom  cometh   not — he's  not   "  i'   the  vein " — a  some- 
thing, as  like  nothing  as  possible,  has  given  him  a  disgust 
that  is  insurmountable — he  flings  his  happiness  to  the  winds, 
though  he  never  loved  with  more  outrageous  intensity  than 
at  the  moment  he  discards  his  mistress;   so  he  fights  three 
duels  with  the  two  brothers  and   father.      He  wounds  one  of 
the  young  men   dangerously,   the    other    slightly ;    fires    his 
pistol  in  the  air  when  he  meets  her  father — for  how  could 
he  take   the  life  of  him  who  gave  life  to  his  adored  one  ? 
Your  hero   can   always  hit   a   man  just  where  he   pleases — 
vide  every  novel  in  Mr.   C.'s  collection.     The  hero  becomes 
misanthropical,  the   heroine   maniacal.     The  former  marries 
an  antiquated  and  toothless  dowager,  as  an  escape  from  the 
imaginary    disgust    he    took    at    the    sight    of    a    matchless 
woman  ;  and  the  latter  marries  an  old   brute,  who  threatens 
her    life    every   night,   and    puts    her   in    bodily   fear    every 
morning,  as  an  indemnity  in   full   for  the  loss   of  the  man 

289  T 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

of  her  affections.  They  are  both  romantically  miserable; 
and  then  comes  on  your  tantalising  scene  of  delicate  dis- 
tress, and  so  the  end  of  your  third  volume,  and  then  finish 
without  any  end  at  all.  Verb.  sap.  sat.  Or,  if  you  like  it 
better,  kill  the  old  dowager  of  a  surfeit,  and  make  the  old 
brute  who  marries  the  heroine  commit  suicide  ;  and  after  all 
these  unheard-of  trials,  marry  them  as  fresh  and  beautiful 
as  ever. 

A.  A  thousand  thanks.     Your  verba  are  not  thrown  to  a 
sap.     Can  I  possibly  do  you  any  favour  for  all  this  kindness  ? 

B.  Oh,  my  dear  fellow  !  the  very  greatest.     As  I  see  yours 
will  be,  at  all  points,  a  most  fashionable  novel,  do  me  the 
inestimable  favour  not  to  ask  me  to  read  it. 


290 


HOW  TO    WRITE  A  BOOK  OF 
TRAVELS 

MR.  ANSARD'S  Chambers. 

A.  (alone}.   Well,   I   thought  it   hard   enough    to   write  a 
novel  at  the  dictate  of  the  bibliopolist ;  but  to  be  condemned 
to  sit  down  and  write  my  travels — travels  that  have  never 
extended  farther  than  the  Lincoln's  Inn  Coffee  House  for  my 
daily  food  and  a  walk  to  Hampstead  on  a  Sunday.     These 
travels  to  be  swelled  into  Travels  up  the  Rhine  in  the  year 
18 — .     Why,  it's  impossible.     Oh,  that  Barnstaple  were  here  I 
for  he  has  proved  my  guardian  angel !     Lazy,  clever  dog ! 

Enter  BARNSTAPLE. 

B.  Pray,  my  dear  Ansard,  to  whom  did  you  apply  that  last 
epithet  ? 

A.  My  dear  Barnstaple,  I  never  was  more  happy  to  see 
you.     Sit  down,   I  have  much  to  tell  you,  all  about  myself 
and  my  difficulties. 

B.  The  conversation  promises  to  be  interesting  to  me,  at 
all  events. 

A.  Everything  is  interesting  to  true  friendship. 

B.  Now  I  perceive  that  you  do   want  something.     Well, 
before  you  state  your  case,  tell  me,  how  did  the  novel  go  off? 

A.  Wonderfully    well.      It   was    ascribed    to   Lord  G : 

the  bait  took,  and  750  went  off  in  a  first  edition,  and  the 
remainder  of  the  copies  went  off  in  a  second. 

B.  Without  being  reprinted  ? 

A.  Exactly.     I  was  surprised  at  my  success,  and  told  my 
291 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

publisher  so ;  but  he  answered  that  he  could  sell  an  edition 
of  any  trash  he  pleased. 

B.  That  was  not  flattering. 

A.  Not  very  ;  but  his  bill  was  honoured,  and  that  consoled 
me.     However,   to   proceed   to   business — he    has  given  me 
another  order — A  Journey  up  the  Rhine,  in  two  vols.  large 
octavo,  in  the  year   18 — .     Now,   Barnstaple,  what's  to  be 
done  ? 

B.  Write  it,  to  be  sure. 

A.  But  you  well  know  I  have  never  been  out  of  England, 
in  my  life. 

B.  Never  mind,  write  it. 

A.  Yes,   it's   very   well    to    say   write   it ;    but   how   the 
devil  am  I  to  write  it  ?     Write  what  I  have  never  seen — 
detail  events  which  never  occurred — describe  views  of  that 
of  which  I    have   not  even  an  idea — travel  post  in  my  old 
arm-chair.     It's  all  very  well  to  say  write  it,  but  tell  me, 
how. 

B.  I  say  again,  write  it,  and  pocket  the  money.     Ansard, 
allow  me  to  state  that  you  are  a  greenhorn.     I  will  make 
this    mountain    of    difficulties    vanish    and    melt    away    like 
snow  before  the  powerful   rays  of  the  sun.      You  are  told 
to  write  what  you  have  never  seen ;  but  if  you   have  not, 
others   have,   which   will    serve   your   purpose   just    as  well. 
To  detail  events  which  have  never  occurred — invent  them, 
they  will  be  more  amusing.      Describe  views,  &c.,  of  which 
you   are   ignorant — so   are   most  of  your  readers ;  but   have 
we    not    the    art    of   engraving    to    assist  you  ?      To    travel 
post    in   your  arm-chair — a  very   pleasant   and    a   very   pro- 
fitable  way   of  travelling,  as  you   have   not  to  pay  for  the 
horses   and   postillions,   and   are    not    knocked   to   pieces  by 
continental   roads.       Depend    upon   it,   the  best  travels  are 
those  written  at  home,  by  those  who  have  never  put  their 
foot  into  the  Calais  packet-boat. 

A.  To  me  this  is  all  a  mystery.      I   certainly  must  be  a 
greenhorn,  as  you  observe. 

B.  Why,  Ansard,  my   dear  fellow,  with  a  book   of  roads 
and   a  gazetteer,    I    would   write  a    more   amusing  book   of 
travels  than  one  half  which  are  now  foisted  on  the  public. 
All  you  have  to  do  is  to  fill  up  the  chinks. 

A    All  I  want  to  do  is  to  fill  up  the  chinks  in  my  stomach, 
292 


HOW  TO   WRITE  A   BOOK  OF  TRAVELS 

Barnstaple  ;    for   between   you    and    me,   times   are   rather 
queer. 

B.  You  shall  do  it  if  you  will  follow  my  advice.  I  taught 
you  how  to  write  a  fashionable  novel ;  it  will  be  hard,  indeed, 
if  I  cannot  send  you  up  the  Rhine.  One  little  expense 
must  be  incurred — you  must  subscribe  a  quarter  to  a  cir- 
culating library,  for  I  wish  that  what  you  do  should  be  well 
done. 

A.  Barnstaple,  I  will  subscribe  to — anything. 

B.  Well,  then,  since  you  are  so  reasonable,  I  will  proceed. 
You  must  wade  through  all  the  various  "Journeys   on  the 
Rhine,"  "Two  Months  on    the    Rhine,"  "Autumns   on  the 
Rhine,"    &c.,   which   you    can    collect.      This  you   will    find 
the  most  tiresome   part  of  your  task.      Select   one   as  your 
guide,   one   who   has    a   reputation  ;    follow   his    course,   not 
exactly — that    I    will    explain    afterwards— and    agree    with 
him   in   everything,  generally   speaking.      Praise   his   exacti- 
tude  and   fidelity,  and  occasionally  quote   him  ;   this   is   but 
fair;    after  you    rob    a    man    (and    I    intend   you    shall    rifle 
him  most   completely),  it   is   but  decent   to   give   him   kind 
words.       All    others   you    must    abuse,    contradict,    and    de- 
preciate.    Now,  there  is  a  great  advantage  in  so  doing  •  in 
the   first   place,  you   make   the  best  writer  your  friend — he 
forgets  your  larcenies   in   your  commendation   of  him,  and 
in  your  abuse   of  others.     If  his  work   be  correct,  so  must 
yours  be  ;  he  praises  it  everywhere — perhaps  finds  you  out, 
and  asks  you  to  dine  with  him. 

A.  How  should  I  ever  look  at  his  injured  face  ? 

B.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  the  obliged  party — your  travels 
are  a  puff  to  his  own. 

A.  But,    Barnstaple,   allowing  that   I    follow   this  part  of 
your  advice,  which   I   grant  to  be  very  excellent,  how  can 
I   contradict  others,   when  they  may  be,  and  probably  are, 
perfectly  correct  in  their  assertions  ? 

B.  If  they  are  so,  virtue  must  be  its  own  reward.     It  is 
necessary  that  you  write  a  book  of  travels,  and  all  travellers 
contradict  each  other — ergo,  you  must  contradict,  or  nobody 
will  believe   that  you  have  travelled.     Not  only  contradict, 
but  sneer  at  them. 

A.  Well,  now  do  explain  how  that  is  to  be  done. 

B.  Nothing  more  simple :  for  instance,  a  man  measures  a 

293 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

certain  remarkable  piece  of  antiquity — its  length  is  747  feet. 
You  must  measure  it  over  again,  and  declare  that  he  is  in 
error,  that  it  is  only  727.  To  be  sure  of  your  being  correct, 
measure  it  twice  over,  and  then  convict  him. 

A.  But  surely,   Barnstaple,  one  who   has   measured  it  is 
more  likely  to  be  correct  than  one  who  has  not. 

B.  I'll  grant  you  that  he   is  correct  to   half  an  inch — • 
that's   no   matter.      The   public   will,  in   all   probability,  be- 
lieve you,  because  you  are  the  last  writer,  and  because  you 
have  decreased  the  dimensions.     Travellers  are  notorious  for 
amplification,  and  if  the  public  do  not  believe  you,  let  them 
go  and  measure  it. 

A.  A   third   traveller  may  hereafter  measure  it,  and  find 
that  I  am  in  the  wrong. 

B.  Ten  to  one  if  you  are  not  both  in  the  wrong ;  but  what 
matter  will  that  be  ?  your  book  will  have  been  sold. 

A.  Most  true,  O  king!    I  perceive  now  the  general  outline, 
and  I  feel  confident  that,  with  your  kind  assistance,  I   may 
accomplish  it.      But,  Barnstaple,  the  beginning  is  everything. 
If  I  only  had  the  first  chapter  as  a  start,  I  think  I  could  get 
on.     It  is  the  modus  that  I  want — the  style.     A  first  chapter 
would  be  a  keynote  for  the  remainder  of  the  tune,  with  all 
the  variations. 

B.  Well,  then,  take  up  your  pen.    But  before  1  commence, 
it  may  be  as  well  to  observe  that  there  is  a  certain  method 
required,   even   in  writing   travels.       In   every  chapter  you 
should  have  certain  landmarks  to  guide  you.      For  instance, 
enumerate  the  following,  and  select  the  works  from  which 
they  may  be  obtained,  so  as  to  mix  up  the  instructive  with 
the  amusing.   'Travelling — remarks  on  country  passed  through 
— anecdote — arrival  at  a  town — churches — population —his- 
torical  remarks — another  anecdote — eating   and    drinking — 
natural  curiosities — egotism — remarks  on  the  women  (never 
mind  the  men)— another  anecdote — reflections — an  adventure 
— and   go   to   bed.     You   understand,  Ansard,  that  in  these 
memoranda  you  have  all  that  is  required  ;  the  rule  is  not  to 
be  followed  absolutely,  but  generally.    As  you  observed,  such 
is  to  be  the  tune,  but  your  variations  may  be  infinite.     When 
at  a  loss,  or  you  think  you  are  dull,  always  call  in  a  grisette, 
and  a  little  mystery ;  and,  above  all,  never  be  afraid  of  talking 
too  much  about  yourself. 

294 


HOW  TO   WRITE  A   BOOK   OF  TRAVELS 

A.  Many,  many  thanks  ;  but  now,  my  dear  Barnstaple,  for 
the  first  chapter. 

B.  Let  your  style  beflowery — I  should  say  florid — never  mind 
a  false  epithet  or  two  in  a  page,  they  will  never  be  observed. 
A  great  deal  depends  upon  the  first  two  pages — you  must 
not  limp  at  starting;  we  will,  therefore.,  be  particular.     Take 
your  pen.         [BARNSTAPLE  muses  for  a  while  and  then  continues. 

"A  severe  cough,  which  refused  to  yield  even  to  the 
balmy  influence  of  the  genial  spring  of  1 8 — ,  and  threatened 
a  pulmonary  complaint,  induced  me  to  yield  to  the  reiterated 
persuasions  of  my  physicians  to  try  a  change  of  air,  as  most 
likely  to  ward  off  the  threatened  danger.  Where  to  direct 
my  steps  was  the  difficult  point  to  ascertain.  Brighton, 
Torquay,  Crotner,  Ilfracombe,  had  all  been  visited  and  re- 
visited. At  either  of  these  fashionable  resorts  I  was  certain 
to  fall  in  with  a  numerous  acquaintance,  whose  persuasions 
would  have  induced  me  to  depart  from  that  regularity  of 
diet  and  of  rest  so  imperiously  insisted  upon  by  my  medical 
advisers.  After  much  cogitation,  I  resolved  upon  a  journey 
up  the  Rhine,  and  to  escape  the  ruthless  winter  of  our 
northern  clime  in  the  more  genial  land  of  history." 

A.  Land  of  history — I  presume  you  mean  Italy  ;  but  am  I 
to  go  there  ? 

B.  No,  you  may  recover,  and  come   back  again  to  skate 
upon  the  Serpentine,  if  you  please.     You  observe,  Ansard,  I 
have  not  made  you  a  fellow  with  £50  in  his  pocket,  setting 
out  to  turn  it  into  £300  by  a  book  of  travels.    I  have  avoided 
mention  of  Margate,  Ramsgate,  Broadstairs,  and  all  common 
watering-places;  I  have  talked  of  physicians  in  the  plural;  in 
short,  no  one  who  reads  that  paragraph  but  will  suppose  that 
you  are  a  young  man  of  rank  and  fortune,  to  whom  money  is 
no  object,   and  who   spends    hundreds   to   cure    that  which 
might  be  effected  by  a  little  regularity,  and  a  few  doses  of 
ipecacuanha. 

A.  I  wish  it  were  so.     Nevertheless,  I'll  travel  en  grand 
seigneur — that's    more  agreeable    even   in   imagination    than 
being  rumbled  in  a  "diligence." 

B.  And  will   produce  more  respect  for  your  work,  I  can 
assure  you.     But  to  proceed.     Always,  when  you  leave  Eng- 
land, talk  about  hospitality.     The  English  like  it.     Have  yo^ 

295 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

no  relations  or  friends  in  whose  opinion  you  wish  to  stand 
well  ?  Public  mention  in  print  does  wonders,  especially  with 
a  copy  handsomely  bound  "  from  the  author." 

A.  Really,  Barnstaple,  I  do  not  know  any  one.     My  poor 
mother  is  in  Cumberland,  and  that  is  not  en  route.     I  have  a 
maternal  uncle  of  the  name  of  Forster,  who  lives  on  the  road 
— a  rich,  old,  miserly  bachelor ;  but  I  can't  say  much  for  his 
hospitality.     I  have  called  upon  him  twice,  and  he  has  never 
even  asked  me  to  dinner. 

B.  Never  mind.       People  like  being  praised  for  a  virtue 
which   they  do   not   possess — it  may  prove   a  legacy.      Say, 
then,  that  you   quitted  the  hospitable  roof  of  your  worthy 
and  excellent-hearted  relation,  Mr.  Forster,  and  felt 

A.  Felt  how  ? 

B.  How — why   you    felt,    as    he    wrung   your   hand,   that 
there  was  a  sudden  dissolution  of  the  ties  of  kindred  and 
affection. 

A.  There   always   has  been   in   that   quarter,   so  my   con- 
science is  so  far  clear. 

B.  You  arrive  at  Dover  (mind  you  spell  it  Dover) — go  to 
bed  tired  and  reflective — embark  early  the  next  morning — a 
rough  passage — 

A.  And  sea-sick,  of  course  ? 

B.  No,  Ansard  ;  there  I'll  give  you  a  proof  of  my  tact-' 
you  shan't  be  sea-sick. 

A.  But  I'm  sure  I  should  be. 

B.  All   travellers  are,  and  all  fill  up  a  page  or  two  with 
complaints,  ad  nauseam — for  that  reason  sick   you  shall  not 
be.      Observe — to  your  astonishment  you  are  not  sea-sick  ; 
the   other    passengers    suffer   dreadfully ;    one   young  dandy 
puffs  furiously  at  a  cigar  in  bravado,  until  he  sends  it  over 
the    side,    like    an    arrow    from    the    blowpipe    of  a    South 
American  Indian.     Introduce  a  husband  with  a  pretty  wife 
— he  jealous  as  a  dog,  until  he  is  sick  as  a  cat — your  atten- 
tions— she  pillowed  on  your  arms,  while  he  hangs  over  the 
lee   gunwale — her   gratitude — safe    arrival    at  Calais — sweet 
smiles  of  the  lady — sullen  deportment  of  the  gentleman — 
a  few  hints — and  draw  the  veil.      Do  you  understand  ? 

A.  Perfectly.      I  can  manage  all  that. 

B.  Then  when  you  put  your  foot  on  shore,  you  must,  foj 
the  first  time,  feel  sea-sick. 

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HOW  TO  WRITE  A   BOOK   OF  TRAVELS 

A.  On  shore  ? 

B.  Yes ;  reel  about,  not  able   to  stand — every   symptom 
as  if  on  board.     Express  your  surprise  at  the  strange  effect, 
pretend   not   to   explain   it ;    leave   that  to  medical   men,   it 
being  sufficient  for  you  to  state  the  fact. 

A.  The  fact!     O  Barnstaple  ! 

B.  That    will    be    a   great   hit    for   a  first  chapter.     You 
reverse  the  order  of  things. 

A.  That    I    do    most    certainly.      Shall    I    finish    the    first 
chapter  with  that  fact  ? 

B.  No.     Travellers  always  go  to  bed  at  the  end  of  each 
chapter.      It  is  a  wise  plan,  and  to  a  cei'tain  degree  it  must 
be    followed.       You    must    have    a    baggage    adventure— be 
separated  from  it— some  sharp  little  urchin  has  seized  upon 
your  valise — it  is  nowhere  to  be  found — quite  in  despair — 
walk  to  the   Hotel  d'Angleterre,  and  find  that  you  are  met 
by    the    landlord    and    gar^ons,    who    inform    you    that    your 
carriage  is  in  the  remise,  and  your  rooms  ready — ascend  to 
your   bedroom — find   that   your  baggage    is   not   only   there, 
but    neatly    laid    out — your    portmanteau    unstrapped — your 
trunk  uncorded — and  the  little  rascal  of  a  commissaire  stand- 
ing by  with  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and  a  smile  dc  malice,  having 
installed  himself  as   your  domcstique   de  place — take    him   for 
his  impudence — praise  the  "  Cotelettcs  and  the  vin  de  Bcainie" 
— wish   the  reader  good  night,  and  go  to  bed.     Thus  ends 
the  first  chapter. 

[ANSARD  gets  up  and  takes  BARNSTAPLE'S  hand,  which 
he  shakes  warmly  without  speaking.  BARNSTAPLE 
smiles  and  walks  out.  ANSARD  is  left  hard  at  work 
at  his  desk. 

ARTHUR  ANSARD  in  his  Chambers,  solus,  with  his  pen 
in  his  hand. 

A.  Capital !  that  last  was  a  hit.  It  has  all  the  appear- 
ance of  reality.  To  be  sure,  I  borrowed  the  hint,  but  that 
nobody  will  be  able  to  prove.  (Yawns.)  Heigho  !  I  have 
only  got  half-way  on  my  journey  yet,  and  my  ideas  are  quite 
exhausted.  I  am  as  much  worn  out  and  distressed  as  one  of 
the  German  post-horses  which  I  described  in  my  last  chapter. 
(Nods,  and  then  falls  asleep.) 

297 


OLLA   PODRIDA 


BARNSTAPLE  taps  at  the  door  ;  receiving  no  answer,  he  enters. 

B.  So — quite  fast.  What  can  have  put  him  to  sleep. 
(Reads  the  manuscript  on  the  table.)  No  wonder,  enough  to 
put  anybody  to  sleep,  apparently.  Why,  Ansard  ! 

A.  (starting  up  still  half  asleep}.    Already  ?    Why,  I've  hardly 
shut  my  eyes.     Well,  I'll  be  dressed  directly  ;  let  them  get 
some  cafe  ready  below.     Henri,  did  you  order  the  hind-spring 
to  be  repaired  ?     (Nods  again  with  his  eyes  shut.) 

B.  Hallo!   What  now,   Ansard,  do  you  really  think  that 
you  are  travelling  f 

A.  (waking  up).    Upon  my  word,  Barnstaple,  I  was  so  dream- 
ing.     I  thought  I  was  in  my  bed  at  the  Hotel  de  Londres, 
after  the  fatiguing  day's  journey  I  described  yesterday.      I 
certainly  have  written  myself  into  the  conviction  that  I  was 
travelling  post. 

B.  All   the  better — you  have  embodied  yourself  in  your 
own  work,  which  every  writer  of  fiction  ought  to  do  ;  but 
they  can  seldom  attain  such  a  desideratum.     Now,  tell  me, 
how  do  you  get  on  ? 

A.  Thank  you — pretty  well.     I  have  been  going  it  with 
four  post-horses  these  last  three  weeks. 

B.  And  how  far  have  you  got  ? 

A.  Half-way — that  is,  into  the  middle  of  my  second  volume. 
But  I'm  very  glad  that  you're  come  to  my  assistance,  Barn- 
staple  ;  for,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  was  breaking  down. 

B.  Yes,  you  said  something  about  the  hind-spring  of  your 
carriage. 

A.  That  I  can  repair  without  your  assistance  ;  but  my  spirits 
are  breaking  down.      I  want  society.     This  travelling  post  is 
dull  work.     Now,  if  I  could  introduce  a  companion 

B.  So  you  shall.     At  the  next  town  that  you  stop  at,  buy 
a  poodle. 

A.  A  poodle,  Barnstaple  !      How  the  devil  shall  I  be  as- 
sisted by  a  poodle  ? 

B.  He  will  prove  a  more  faithful  friend  to  you  in  your 
exigence,   and  a  better  companion  than  one   of  your  own 
species.     A  male  companion,  after  all,  is  soon  expended,  and 
a  female,  which  would  be  more  agreeable,  is  not  admissible. 
If  you  admit  a  young  traveller  into  your   carriage  —  what 

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HOW  TO  WRITE  A  BOOK   OF  TRAVELS 

then  ?  He  is  handsome,  pleasant,  romantic,  and  so  forth ;  but 
you  must  not  give  his  opinions  in  contradiction  to  your  own, 
and  if  they  coincide,  it  is  superfluous.  Now,  a  poodle  is  a"  dog 
of  parts,  and  it  is  more  likely  that  you  fall  in  with  a  sagacious 
dog  than  with  a  sagacious  man.  The  poodle  is  the  thing ; 
you  must  recount  your  meeting,  his  purchase,  size,  colour, 
and  qualifications,  and  anecdotes  of  his  sagacity,  vouched  for 
by  the  landlord,  and  all  the  gargons  of  the  hotel.  As  you 
proceed  on  your  travels,  his  attachment  to  you  increases,  arid 
wind  up  every  third  chapter  with  "your  faithful  Mouton." 

A.  Will  not  all  that  be  considered  frivolous  ? 

B.  Frivolous  !  by  no  means.      The  frivolous  will  like  it, 
and  those   who   may  have  more    sense,   although  they   may 
think  that  Mouton  does  not  at  all  assist  your  travelling  re- 
searches,  are   too  w«ll  acquainted   with    the   virtues  of  the 
canine  race,  and  the  attachment  insensibly  imbibed  for  so 
faithful  an  attendant,  not  to  forgive  your  affectionate  mention 
of  him.     Besides,  it  will  go  far  to  assist  the  verisimilitude  of 
your  travels.     As  for  your  female  readers,  they  will   prefer 
Mouton  even  to  you. 

A.  All-powerful   and    mighty   magician,    whose    wand    of 
humbug,  like  that  of  Aaron,  swallows  up  all  others,  not  ex- 
cepting that  of  divine  Truth,  I  obey  you  !     Mouton  shall  be 
summoned  to  my  aid  ;  he  shall   flourish,  and  my  pen   shall 
flourish  in  praise  of  his  endless  perfections.     But,  Barnstaple, 
what  shall  I  give  for  him  ? 

B.  (thinks  awhile}.  Not  less  than  forty  louis. 

A.  Forty  louis  for  a  poodle  ! 

B.  Most  certainly ;  not  a  sou  less.     The  value  of  anything 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world  is  exactly  what  it  costs.     Mouton, 
at  a  five-franc  piece,  would  excite  no  interest  ;  and  his  value 
to  the  reader  will  increase  in  proportion  to  his  price,  which 
will  be  considered  an  undeniable  proof  of  all  his  wonderful 
sagacity,  with  which  you  are  to  amuse  the  reader. 

A.  But  in  what  is  to  consist  his  sagacity  ? 

B.  He  must  do  everything  but  speak.     Indeed,  he  must 
so  far  speak  as  to  howl  the  first  part  of  "  Lieber  Augustin." 

A.  His  instinct  shall  put  our  boasted  reason  to  the  blush. 
But 1  think  I  had  better  not  bring  him  home  with  me. 

B.  Of  course  not.      In  the  first  place,  it's  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  kill  him,  lest  his  reputation  should  induce  people  to 

299 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

seek  him  out,  which  they  would  do,  although,  in  all  pro- 
bability, they  never  will  his  master.  Lady  Cork  would 
certainly  invite  him  to  a  literary  soiree.  You  must  therefore 
kill  him  in  the  most  effective  way  possible,  and  you  will 
derive  the  advantage  of  filling  up  at  least  ten  pages  with  his 
last  moments  —  licking  your  hand,  your  own  lamentations, 
violent  and  inconsolable  grief  on  the  part  of  Henri,  and 
tanning  his  skin  as  a  memorial. 

A.  A  beautiful  episode,  for  which  receive  my  best  thanks. 
But,  Barnstaple,  I  have  very  few  effective  passages  as  yet.     I 
have  remodelled  several  descriptions  of  mountains,  precipices, 
waterfalls,  and  such  wonders  of  the  creation — expressed  my 
contempt  and  surprise  at  the  fear  acknowledged   by  other 
travellers,  in  several  instances.     I  have  lost  my  way  twice — 
met  three  wolves — been  four  times  benighted — and  indebted 
to  lights  at  a  distance  for  a  bed  at  midnight,  after  the  horses 
have  refused  to  proceed.     All  is  incident,  and  I  am  quite  hard 
up  for  description.      Now,  I  have  marked  down  a  fine  passage 

in 's  work — a  beautiful  description  of  a  cathedral  with  a 

grand  procession.      (Reads.)  "  What  with  the  effect  of  the 
sun's  brightest    beams  upon   the    ancient    glass   windows — • 
various  hues  reflected  upon  the  Gothic  pillars — gorgeousness 
of  the  procession — sacerdotal  ornaments — tossing  of  censers — 
crowds  of  people — elevation  of  the  host,  and  sinking  down 
of  the  populace  en  masse"     It  really  is  a  magnificent  line  of 
writing,  and  which  my  work  requires.     One  or  two  like  that 
in  my  book  would  do  well  to  be  quoted  by  impartial  critics, 
before  the  public  are  permitted  to  read  it.     But  here,  you 
observe,  is  a  difficulty.     I  dare  not  borrow  the  passage. 

B.  But  you  shall  borrow  it — you  shall  be  even  finer  than 
he  "is,  and  yet  he  shall  not  dare  to  accuse  you  of  plagiarism. 

A.  How  is  that  possible,  my  dear  Barnstaple?     I  am  all 
impatience. 

B.  His  description  is  at  a  certain  hour  of  the  day.     All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  portray  the  scene  in  nearly  the  same 
words.     You  have  as  much  right  to  visit  a  cathedral  as  he 
has,  and  as  for  the  rest — here  is  the  secret.     You  must  visit 
it  at  night.      Instead  of  "glorious  beams,"  you  will  talk  of 
"pale  melancholy  light;"  instead  of  "the  stained  windows 
throwing  their  various  hues  upon  the  Gothic  pile,"  you  must 
"darken  the  massive  pile,  and  light   up  the  windows  with 

300 


HOW   TO  WRITE  A  BOOK   OF   TRAVELS 

the  silver  rays  of  the  moon."  The  glorious  orb  of  day  must 
give  place  to  thousands  of  wax  tapers — the  splendid  fret- 
work of  the  roof,  you  must  regret,  was  not  to  be  clearly 
distinguished— but  you  must  be  in  ecstasies  with  the  broad 
light  and  shade — the  blaze  at  the  altar — solemn  hour  of 
night— feelings  of  awe — half  a  Catholic — religious  reflections, 
&c.  Don't  you  perceive  ? 

A.  I  do.     Like  the  rest  of  my  work,  it  shall  be  all  moon- 
shine.    It  shall  be  done,  Barnstaple  ;  but  have  you  not  another 
idea  or  two  to  help  me  with  ? 

B.  Have  you  talked  about  cooks  ? 
A.  As  yet,  not  a  word. 

J5.   By  this  time  you  ought  to  have  some  knowledge  of 
gastronomy.     Talk  seriously  about  eating. 

A.  {writes'}.   I  have  made  a  mem. 

B.  Have  you  had  no  affront  ? 

A.  Not  one. 

B.  Then  be   seriously  affronted — complain  to  the   burgo- 
master, or  mayor,  or  commandant,  whoever  it  may  be — they 
attempt  to  bully — you  are  resolute  and  firm  as  an  Englishman 
— insist  upon  being  righted — they  must  make  you  a  thousand 
apologies.     This  will  tickle  the  national  vanity,  and  be  read 
with  interest. 

A.  (writes}.   I  have  been  affronted.     Anything  else  which 
may  proceed  from  your  prolific  brain,  Barnstaple  ? 

B.  Have  you  had  a  serious  illness  ? 

A.  Never  complained  even  of  a  headache. 

B.  Then  do  everything  but  die — Henri  weeping  and  in- 
consolable—  Mouton  howling  at  the  foot  of  your  bed — kick 
the  surgeons  out  of  the  room — and  cure  yourself  with  three 
dozen  of  champagne. 

A.  (writes).  Very  sick — cured  with  three  dozen  of  cham- 
pagne— I  wish  the  illness  would  in  reality  come  on,  if  I  were 
certain  of  the  cure  gratis.     Go  on,  my  dear  Barnstaple. 

B.  You   may   work   in   an   episode   here — delirium — lucid 
intervals — gentle  female  voice — delicate   attentions— myste- 
rious discovery  from  loquacious  landlady — eternal  gratitude 
— but  no  marriage — an  apostrophe — and  all  the  rest  left  to 
conjecture. 

A.    (writes  down].     Silent  attentions  —  conjecture  —  I  can 
manage  that,  I  think. 

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OLLA   PODRIDA 

B.  By-the-bye,  have  you  brought  in  Madame  de  Stael  ? 

A.  No — how  the  devil  am  I  to  bring  her  in  ? 

B.  As  most  other  travellers  do,  by  the  head  and  shoulders. 
Never  mind  that,  so  long  as  you  bring  her  in. 

A.  (writes).   Madame  de  Stael  by  the  shoulders— that's  not 
very  polite  towards  a  lady.     These  hints  are  invaluable  ;  pray 
go  on. 

B.  Why,  you  have  already  more  hints  this  morning  than 
are  sufficient  for  three  volumes.     But,  however,  let  me  see. 
(B.  thinks  a  little.}     Find  yourself  short  of  cash. 

A.  A  sad  reality,  Barnstaple.      I  shall  write  this  part  well, 
for  truth  will  guide  my  pen. 

B.  All   the    better.     But  to   continue — no   remittances — 
awkward  position — explain  your  situation — receive  credit  to 
any  amount — and  compliment  your  countrymen. 

A.  (writes).  Credit  to  any  amount — pleasing  idea.     But  I 
don't  exactly  perceive  the  value  of  this  last  hint,  Barnstaple. 

B.  All  judicious   travellers    make   it  a  point,  throughout 
the   whole   of   their   works,   to   natter   the   nation    upon    its 
wealth,  name,  and  reputation  in  foreign  countries ;  by  doing 
so  you  will  be  read  greedily,  and  praised  in  du^  proportion. 
If  ever    I    were    to  write    my   travels   into   the    interior   of 
Africa,   or  to   the    North    Pole,   I    would    make    it    a    point 
to   discount  a   bill   at   Timbuctoo,  or  get  a   cheque    cashed 
by   the   Esquimaux,   without    the    least   hesitation   in   either 
case.     I    think    now,   that  what  with   your  invention,   your 
plagiarism,    and    my    hints,    you    ought   to    produce    a    very 
effective    Book    of  Travels;  and  with   that   feeling    I   shaft 
leave  you  to  pursue  your  journey,  and  receive,  at  its  finale, 
your  just  reward.     When  we   meet   again,   I    hope   to   see 
you  advertised. 

A.  Yes,  but  not  exposed,  I  trust.     I  am  incog.,  you  know. 

B.  To  be  sure,  that  will  impart  an  additional  interest  to 
your  narrative.      All  the  world  will  be  guessing  who  you  may 
be.     Adieu,  voyageur.  [Exit  BARNSTAPLK. 

A.  And  Heaven  forfend  that  they  should  find  me  out ! 
But  what  can  be  done  ?  In  brief,  I  cannot  get  a  brief, 
and  thus  I  exercise  my  professional  acquirements  how  I 
can,  proving  myself  as  long-winded,  as  prosy  perhaps,  and 
certainly  as  lying,  as  the  more  fortunate  of  my  fraternity. 

302 


HOW  TO   WRITE  A  ROMANCE 


MR.  ARTHUR  ANSARD  standing  at  his  table,  selecting  a  steel  pen 
Jrom  a  card  on  which  a  dozen  are  ranged  up,  like  soldiers 
on  parade. 

1  MUST  find  a  regular  graver  to  write  this  chapter  of 
horrors.  No  goose  quill  could  afford  me  any  assistance. 

Now  then.     Let  me   see (Reads,  and   during   his  reading 

BARNSTAPLE  comes  in  at  the  door  behind  him  unperceived.) 
"At  this  most  monstrously  appalling  sight,  the  hair  of 
Piftlianteriscki  raised  slowly  the  velvet  cap  from  off  his 
head,  as  if  it  had  been  perched  upon  the  rustling  quills 
of  some  exasperated  porcupine  —  (I  think  that's  new) — his 
nostrils  dilated  to  that  extent  that  you  might,  with  ease, 
have  thrust  a  musket  bullet  into  each — his  mouth  was 
opened  so  wide,  so  unnaturally  wide,  that  the  corners  were 
rent  asunder,  and  the  blood  slowly  trickled  down  each  side 
of  his  bristly  chin — while  each  tooth  loosened  from  its 
socket  with  individual  fear.  Not  a  word  could  he  utter, 
for  his  tongue,  in  its  fright,  clung  with  terror  to  his  upper 
jaw,  as  tight  as  do  the  bellies  of  the  fresh  and  slimy  soles 
paired  together  by  some  fisherwoman  ;  but  if  his  tongue 
was  paralysed,  his  heart  was  not — it  throbbed  against  his 
ribs  with  a  violence  which  threatened  their  dislocation  from 
the  sternum,  and  with  a  sound  which  reverberated  through 
the  dark,  damp  subterrane —  '  I  think  that  will  do.  There's 
force  there. 

B.  There  is,  with  a  vengeance.     Why,  what  is  all  this  ? 

A.  My  dear  Barnstaple,  you  here  !     I'm  writing  a  romance 

for  B .     It  is  supposed  to  be  a  translation. 

-    B.  The  Germans  will  be  infinitely  obliged  to  you;  butt 
303 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

my  dear  fellow,  you  appear  to  have  fallen  into  the  old  school 
— that's  no  longer  in  vogue.. 

A.  My  orders  are  for  the  old  school.     B was  most 

particular  on  that  point.     He  says  that  there  is  a  reaction 
— a  great  reaction. 

B.  What,  on  literature  ?     Well,  he  knows  as  well  as  any 
man.      I  only  wish  to  God  there  was  in  everything  else,  and 
we  could  see  the  good  old  times  again. 

A.  To  confess  the  truth,  I  did  intend  to  have  finished  this 
without  saying  a  word  to  you.     I  wished  to  have  surprised 
you. 

B.  So  you  have,  my  dear  fellow,  with  the  few  lines  I  have 
heard.      How  the  devil  are  you  to  get  your  fellow  out  of  that 
state  of  asphyxia  ? 

A.  By    degrees  —  slowly,  very    slowly  —  as  they  pretend 
that  we   lawyers   go   to  heaven.      But   I'll   tell   you   what   I 
have   done,  just  to  give  you  an  idea   of  my  work.     In  the 
first   place,   I    have  a  castle  perched  so  high  up  in  the  air, 
that  the   eagles,  even  in  their  highest  soar,  appear  but  as 
wrens  below. 

B.  That's  all  right. 

A.  And  then  it  has  subterraneous  passages,  to  which  the 
sewers  of  London  are  a  mere  song ;  and  they  all  lead  to  a 
small    cave   at   high-water   mark   on  the  sea-beach,   covered 
with    brambles    and    bushes,  and   just    large   enough   at    its 
entrance  to  admit  of  a  man  squeezing  himself  in. 

B.  That's  all    right.       You   cannot   be    too   much    under- 
ground ;  in    fact,   the    two    first,   and    the   best    part  of  the 
third  volume,  should  be  wholly  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
and  your  hero  and  heroine  should  never  come  to  light  until 
the  last  chapter. 

A.  Then    they    would    never    have    been    born    till    then, 
and   how   coald    I    marry  them  ?     But  still  I   have   adhered 
pretty  much  to  your  idea;  and,   Barnstaple,  I  have  such  a 
heroine — sur1    a  love — she  has  never  seen   her  sweetheart, 
yet  she  is  .nost  devotedly  attached,  and  has  suffered  more 
for  his  sake  than  any  mortal  could  endure. 

B.  Most  heroines  generally  do. 

A.   I    have   had    her  into   various    dungeons  for  three  or 
four  years,  on  black  bread  and  a  broken  pitcher  of  water ; 
she  has  been  starved  to  death — lain  for  months  and  months 
304, 


HOW   TO   WRITE  A   ROMANCE 

upon  wet  straw — had  two  brain  fevers— five  times  has  she 
risked  violation,  and  always  has  picked  up,  or  found  in  the 
belt  of  her  infamous  ravishers,  a  stiletto,,  which  she  has 
plunged  into  their  hearts,  and  they  have  expired  with  or 
without  a  groan. 

B.  Excellent :  and  of  course  comes  out  of  her  dungeons 
each  time  as  fresh,  as  sweet,  as  lovely,  as  pure,  as  charming, 
and  as  constant  as  ever. 

A.  Exactly ;    nothing    can    equal    her    infinite    variety    of 
adventure,    and    her   imperishable    beauty    and    unadhesive 
cleanliness  of  person  ;  and,  as   for  lives,  she  has  more  than 
a    thousand    cats.       After    nine    months'    confinement    in    a 
dungeon,  four  feet  square,  when  it  is  opened  for  her  release, 
the  air  is  perfumed  with  the  ambrosia  which  exhales  from 
her  sweet  person. 

B.  Of    course    it    does.       The    only    question    is,    what 
ambrosia   smells    like.     But   let   me   know   something  about 
your  hero. 

A.  He  is  a  prince  and  a  robber. 

B.  The    two    professions    are    not    at    all    incompatible. 
Go  on. 

A.  He   is   the   chief  of  a   band  of  robbers,   and   is   here, 
there,    and    everywhere.      He    fills  all   Europe    with    terror, 
admiration,  and  love. 

B.  Very  good. 

A.  His  reasons  for  joining  the  robbers  are,   of  course,  a 
secret  (and  upon  my  word  they  are  equally  a  secret  to  my- 
self) ;  but  it  is  wonderful,  the  implicit  obedience  of  his  men, 
and   the  many  acts  of  generosity  of  which  he  is  guilty.     I 
make   him   give   away   a   great   deal   more    money   than    his 
whole   band  ever  take,   which  is  so    far    awkward   that   the 
query  may  arise  in  what  way  he  keeps  them  together,  and 
supplies  them  with  food  and  necessaries. 

B.  Of  course  with  /  0  Us  upon  his  princely  domains. 

A.  I    have   some   very  grand  scenes,  amazingly   effective ; 
for  instance,  what  do  you  think,  at   the  moment  after  the 
holy  mass  has  been  performed  in  St.   Peter's  at  Rome,  just 
as  the  pope  is  about  to  put  the  sacred  wafer  into  his  mouth 
and   bless   the  whole  world,  I   make  him   snatch   the  wafer 
out  of  the  pope's  hand,  and  get  clear  off  with  it  ? 

B.  What  for,  may  I  ask  ? 

805  U 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

A.  That  is  a  secret  which  I  do  not  reveal.     The  whole 
arrangement   of  that   part  of  the   plot   is  admirable.       The 
band  of  robbers  are  disguised  as  priests,  and  officiate,  with- 
out being  found  out. 

B.  But  isn't  that  rather  sacrilegious  ? 

A.  No ;  it  appears  so  to  be,  but  he  gives  his  reasons  for 
his  behaviour  to  the  pope,  and  the  pope  is  satisfied,  and  not 
only   gives  him  his  blessing,    but  shows  him    the   greatest 
respect. 

B.  They  must  have  been  very  weighty  reasons. 

A.  And  therefore  they  are  not  divulged. 

B.  That  is  to  say,  not  until  the  end  of  the  work. 

A.  They  are  never  divulged  at  all ;  I  leave  a  great  deal  to 
the  reader's  imagination — people  are  fond  of  conjecture.      All 
they    know    is,    that    he    boldly    appears,    and    demands    an 
audience.      He  is  conducted  in,  the  interview  is  private,  after 
a  sign  made  by  our  hero,  and  at  which  the  pope  almost  leaps 
off  the  chair.      After  an  hour  he  comes  out  again,  and  the 
pope  bows  him  to  the  very  door.     Every  one  is  astonished, 
and,  of  course,  almost  canonises  him. 

B.  That's  going  it  rather  strong  in  a  Catholic  country.     But 
tell  me,  Ansard,  what  is  your  plot  ? 

A.  Plot !  I  have  none. 

B.  No  plot  ? 

A.  No  plot,  and  all  plot.     I  puzzle  the  reader  with  certain 
materials.      I  have  castles  and  dungeons,  corridors  and  creak- 
ing doors,  good  villains  and  bad  villains.     Chain  armour  and 
clank  of  armour,  daggers  for  gentlemen,   and  stilettoes  for 
ladies.     Dark  forests  and  brushwood,  drinking  scenes,  eating 
scenes,  ami  sleeping  scenes — robbers  and  friars,  purses  of  gold 
and  instruments  of  torture,  an  incarnate  devil  of  a  Jesuit,  a 
handsome   hero,  and   a  lovely  heroine.      I  jumble   them   all 
together,  sometimes  above  and  sometimes  under  ground,  and 
I  explain  nothing  at  all. 

B.  Have  you  nothing  supernatural  ? 

A.  Oh  yes  !  I've  a  dog  whose  instinct  is  really  supernatural, 
and  I  have  two  or  three  visions,  which  may  be  considered  so, 
as  they  tell  what  never  else  could  have  been  known.  I 
decorate  my  caverns  and  dungeons  with  sweltering  toads  and 
slimy  vipers,  a  constant  dropping  of  water,  with  chains  too 
ponderous  to  lift,  but  which  the  parties  upon  whom  they  are 
306 


HOW  TO  WRITE  A   ROMANCE 

riveted  clang  together  as  they  walk  up  and  down  in  their 
cells,  and  soliloquise.  So  much  for  my  underground  scenery. 
Above,  I  people  the  halls  with  pages  and  ostrich  feathers, 
and  knights  in  bright  armour,  a  constant  supply  of  generous 
wine,  and  goblets  too  heavy  to  lift,  which  the  knights  toss  off 
at  a  draught,  as  they  sit  and  listen  to  the  minstrel's  music. 

B.   Bravo,  Ansard,  bravo  !     It  appears  to  me  that  you  do 
not  want  assistance  in  this  romance. 

A.  No,  when  I  do  I  have  always  a  holy  and  compassionate 
friar,  who  pulls  a  wonderful  restorative,  or  healing  balm,  out 
of  his  bosom.     The  puffs  of  Solomon's  Balm  of  Gilead  are  a 
fool  to  the  real  merits  of  my  pharmacopoeia  contained  in  a 
small  vial 

B.  And  pray,  what  may  be  the  title  of  this  book  of  yours, 
for  I  have  known  it  take  more  time  to  fix  upon  a  title  than 
to  write  the  three  volumes. 

A.  I  call  it  The   Undiscovered  Secret,  and  very  properly  GO 
too,  for  it  never  is  explained.     But  if  you  please,  I  will  read 
you   some   passages   from   it.      I    think   you   will    approve   of 
them.     For  instance,   now   let   us   take   this,   in   the  second 
volume.     You  must  know,  that  Angelicanarinella  (for  that  is 
the  name  of  my  heroine)  is  thrown  into  a  dungeon  not  more 
than  four  feet  square,  but  more  than  six  hundred  feet  below 
the  surface  of  the  earth      The  ways  are  so  intricate,  and  the 
subterranean  so  vast,  and  the  dungeons  so  numerous,  that  the 
base  Ethiop,  who  has  obeyed  his  master's  orders  in  confin- 
ing her,  has  himself  been  lost  in  the  labyrinth,  and  has  not 
been  able   to  discover  what  dungeon   he   put   her   in.      For 
three  days   he   has   been   looking   for   it,    during   which   our 
heroine  has  been  without  food,  and  he  is  still  searching  and 
scratching  his  woolly  head  in  despair,  as  he  is  to  die  by  slow- 
torture  if  he  does  not  reproduce  her — for,  you  observe,  the 
chiei"  who  has  thrown  her  into  his  dungeon  is  most  despe- 
rately in  love  with  her. 

B.  That  of  course  ;  and  that  is  the  way  to  prove  romantic 
love — you  ill  treat ;  but  still  she  is  certainly  in  a  dilemma,  as 
well  as  the  Ethiop. 

A.  Granted  ;  but  she  talks  like  the  heroine  of  a  romance. 
Listen.      (ANSARD    reads.}     "The    beauteous    and    divinely- 
moulded  form  of  the  angelic  Angelicanarinella  pressed   the 
dank  and  rotten  straw  which  had  been  thrown  down  by  the 
307 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

scowling,  thick-lipped  Ethiop  for  her  repose — she,  for  whom 
attendant  maidens  had  smoothed  the  Sybaritic  sheet  of  finest 
texture,  under  the  elaborately  carved  and  sumptuously  gilt 
canopy,  the  silken  curtains,  and  the  tassels  of  the  purest  dust 
of  gold." 

B.  Tassels  of  dust  of  gold  !  only  figuratively,  I  suppose. 

A.  Nothing  more.     "  Each  particular  straw  of  this  dank, 
damp  bed  was  elastic  with  delight,  at  bearing  such  angelic 
pressure ;  and,    as    our   heroine    cast   her  ineffably   beaming 
eyes  about  the  dark  void,  lighting   up  with  their  effulgent 
rays  each  little  portion  of  the  dungeon,  as  she  glanced  them 
from    one    part    to    another,   she    perceived    that    the    many 
reptiles  enclosed  with  her  in  this  narrow  tomb  were  nestling 
to  her  side,  their  eyes  fixed  upon  her  in  mute  expressions  of 
love  and   admiration.      Her  eclipsed  orbs   were   each,   for  a 
moment,  suffused  with  a  bright  and  heavenly  tear,  and  from 
the  suffusion  threw  out  a  more  brilliant  light  upon  the  feeling 
reptiles  who  paid  this  tribute  to  her  undeserved  sufferings. 
She  put  forth  her  beauteous  hand,  whose  'faint  tracery'— (I 
stole  that  from  Cooper) — whose  faint  tracery   had   so   often 
given  to  others  the  idea  that  it  was  ethereal,  and  not  cor- 
poreal, and  lifting  with  all  the  soft  and  tender  handling  of  first 
love  a  venerable  toad,  which  smiled  upon  her,  she  placed  the 
interesting  animal  so  that  it  could  crawl  up  and  nestle  in  her 
bosom.     'Poor  child  of  dank,  of  darkness,  and  of  dripping,' 
exclaimed  she,  in  her  flute-like  notes, '  who  sheltereth  thyself 
under  the  wet  and  mouldering  wall,  so  neglected  in  thy  form 
by  thy  mother  Nature,  repose  awhile  in  peace  where  princes 
and    nobles    would    envy    thee,    if  they    knew    thy    present 
lot.     But  that  shall  never  be  ;  these  lips  shall  never  breathe 
a    tale    which    might    endanger    thy    existence ;    fear    not, 
therefore,  their   enmity,  and   as    thou   slowly  creepest  away 
thy   little  round  of  circumscribed  existence,  forget  me  not, 
but  shed   an   occasional   pearly  tear  to  the   memory   of  the 
persecuted,  the   innocent  Angelicanarinella  ! '  "     What  d'ye 
think  of  that  ? 

B.  Umph  !  a  very  warm  picture  certainly  ;  however,  it  is 
natural.      You   know,  a    person    of  her    consequence    could 
never  exist  without  a  little  toadi/ism. 

A.   I  have  a  good   many  subterraneous  soliloquies,  which 
would  have  been  lost  for  ever,  if  I  did  not  bring  them  up. 
308 


HOW  TO  WRITE   A   ROMANCE 

23.  That  one  you  have  just  read  is  enough  to  make  every- 
body else  bring  up. 

A.  I  rather  plume  myself  upon  it. 

B.  Yes,  it  is  a  feather  in  your  cap,  and  will  act  as  a  feather 
in  the  throat  of  your  readers. 

A.  Now   I'll  turn  over  the  second  volume,  and  read  you 
another  morceau,  in  which   I  assume  the  more  playful  vein. 
I   have  imitated   one   of  our  modern   writers,  who   must   be 
correct  in  her  language,  as  she  knows  all  about  heroes  and 
heroines.     I  must  confess  that  I've  cribbed  a  little. 

B.  Let's  hear. 

A.  "The   lovely  Angelicanarinella  pottered  for  some  time 
about    this   fairy   chamber,   then   'wrote   journal.'      At    last, 
she  threw  herself  doirn  on  the  floor,  pulled  out  the  miniature, 
gulped   when    she    looked    at   it,    and    then    cried   herself  to 
sleep." 

B.  Pottered  and  gulped  !     What  language  do  you  call  that  ? 

A.  It's  all  right,  my  dear  fellow.      I  understand  that  it  is 
the  refined  slang  of  the  modern  boudoir,  and  only  known  to 
the  initiated. 

B.  They  had  better  keep  it  entirely  to  their  boudoirs.     I 
should  advise  you  to  leave  it  all  out. 

A.  Well,  I  thought   that  one  who  was  so  very  particular 
must  have  been  the  standard  of  perfection  herself. 

B.  That  does  not  at  all  follow. 

A.  But  what  I  wish  to  read  to  you  is  the  way  in  which  I 
have  managed  that  my  secret  shall  never  be  divulged.     It  is 
known  only  to  four. 

B.  A  secret  known  to  four  people  !     You  must  be  quick 
then. 

A.  So  I  am,  as  you  shall  hear ;  they  all   meet  in   a  dark 
gallery,  but  do  not  expect  to   meet  any  one  but   the  hero, 
whom  they  intend  to  murder,  each  one  having,  unknown  to 
the  others,  made  an  appointment  with  him  for  that  purpose, 
on  the  pretence  of  telling  him  the  great  secret.     Altogether 
the   scene  is  well  described,  but  it  is  long,  so  I'll  come  at 
once  to  the  denouement. 

B.  Pray  do. 

A.  "  Absenpresentini  felt  his  way  by  the  slimy  wall,  when 
the    breath    of  another   human    being    caught    his    ear:    he 
paused,  and  held  his  own  breath.     'No,  no,'   muttered  the 
209 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

other,  'the  secret  of  blood  and  gold  shall  remain  with  me 
alone.  Let  him  come,  and  he  shall  find  death.'  In  a  second 
the  dagger  of  Absenpresentini  was  in  the  mutterer's  bosom  : 
— he  fell  without  a  groan.  'To  me  alone  the  secret  of  blood 
and  gold,  and  with  me  it  remains,'  exclaimed  Absenpre- 
sentini. '  It  does  remain  with  you,'  cried  Phosphorini,  driving 
his  dagger  into  his  back :  Absenpresentini  fell  without  a 
groan,  and  Phosphorini,  withdrawing  his  dagger,  exclaimed, 
'  Who  is  now  to  tell  the  secret  but  me  ? '  '  Not  you,'  cried 
Vortiskini,  raising  up  his  sword  and  striking  at  where  the 
voice  proceeded.  The  trusty  steel  cleft  the  head  of  the 
abandoned  Phosphorini,  who  fell  without  a  groan.  '  Now  will 
I  retain  the  secret  of  blood  and  gold,'  said  Vortiskini,  as  he 
sheathed  his  sword.  '  Thou  shalt,'  exclaimed  the  wily  Jesuit, 
as  he  struck  his  stiletto  to  the  heart  of  the  robber,  who  fell 
without  a  groan.  '  With  me  only  does  the  secret  now  rest, 
by  which  our  order  might  be  disgraced ;  with  me  it  dies,' 
and  the  Jesuit  raised  his  hand.  '  Thus  to  the  glory  and  the 
honour  of  his  society  does  Manfredini  sacrifice  his  life.'  He 
struck  the  keen-pointed  instrument  into  his  heart,  and  died 
without  a  groan.  <  Stop  ! '  cried  our  hero." 

B.  And  I  agree  with  your  hero :  stop,  Ansard,  or  you'll 
kill  me  too — but  not  without  a  groan. 

A.  Don't  you  think  it  would  act  well  ? 

B.  Quite  as  well  as  it  reads.     Pray  is  it  all  like  this  ? 

A.  You  shall  judge  for  yourself.     I  have  half  killed  myself 
with  writing  it,  for  I   chew  opium   every  night  to  obtain 
ideas.     Now  again — 

B.  Spare  me,  Ansard,   spare   me ;  my  nerves   are   rather 
delicate  ;  for  the  remainder  I  will  take  your  word. 

A.  I  wish  my  duns  would  do  the  same,  even  if  it  were 
only  my  washerwoman ;  but  there's  no  more  tick  for  me 
here,  except  this  old  watch  of  my  father's,  which  serves  to 
remind  me  of  what  I  cannot  obtain  from  others — time  ;  but, 
however,  there  is  a  time  for  all  things,  and  when  the  time 
comes  that  my  romance  is  ready,  my  creditors  will  obtain 
the  ready. 

B.  Your  only  excuse,  Ansard. 

A.   I  beg  your  pardon.     The  public  require  strong  writing 
nowadays.     We   have    thousands   who   write   well,    and    the 
public  are  nauseated  with  what  is  called  good  trriting. 
310 


HOW  TO  WRITE  A   ROMANCE 

B.  And  so  they  want  something  bad,  eh  ?     Well,  Ansard, 
you  certainly  can  supply  them. 

A,  My  dear  Barnstaple,  you  must  not  disparage  this  style 
of  writing — it  is  not  bad— there   is  a  great  art  in  it.       It 
may    be    termed    writing    intellectual    and    ethereal.       You 
observe  that  it  never  allows  probabilities  or  even  possibili- 
ties to  stand  in  its  way.     The  dross  of  humanity  is  rejected  : 
all  the  common  wants  and  grosser  feelings  of  our  natures 
are    disallowed.       It    is    a    novel    which    is    all    mind   and 
passion.       Corporeal    attributes   and   necessities   are    thrown 
on  one  side,  as  they  would  destroy  the  charm  of  perfecta- 
bility.     Nothing  can  soil,  or  defile,  or  destroy  my  heroine  ; 
suffering  adds  lustre  to  her  beauty,  as  pure  gold  is  tried  by 
fire  :  nothing  can  kill  her,  because  she  is  all  mind.     As  for 
my  men,  you  will  observe  when  you  read  my  work 

B.  When  I  do  ! 

A.  Which^  of  course,  you  will — that  they  also  have  their 
appetites  in   abeyance;  they  never  want   to   eat,  or  drink, 
or  sleep — are   always   at    hand   when   required,   without   re- 
gard to  time   or  space.       Now,  there   is   a   great   beauty  in 
this  description   of  writing.      The  women  adore   it  because 
they    find    their   sex    divested    of   those    human    necessities 
without  which  they  would  indeed  be  angels  !  the  mirror  is 
held    up   to    them,    and    they    find    themselves    perfect— no 
wonder  they  are    pleased.       The    other    sex    are    also   very 
glad   to  dwell   upon   female   perfectability,  which   they  can 
only  find  in  a  romance,  although  they  have  often  dreamt  of 
it  in  their  younger  days. 

B.  There  is  some  truth  in  these  remarks.     Every  milliner's 
girl,   who    devours   your    pages    in    bed    by    the    half-hour's 
light  of  tallow   stolen   for  the    purpose,   imagines    a    strong 
similarity  between  herself  and  your  Angelicanarinella,  and 
every   shop-boy    measuring    tape    or   weighing    yellow    soap 
will    find    out    attributes    common    to    himself  and   to  your 
hero. 

A.  Exactly.       As    long   as  you    draw    perfection    in    both 
sexes,  you  are  certain  to  be  read,  because  by  so  doing  you 
flatter  human  nature  and   self-love,  and   transfer  it  to   the 
individual  who  reads.     Now,  a  picture  of  real  life — 

B.  Is  like  some  of  Wouvermans'  best  pictures,  which  will 
not  be  purchased  by  many,  because  his  dogs  in  the  fore- 

311 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

ground  are  doing  exactly  what  all  dogs  will  naturally  do 
when  they  first  are  let  out  of  their  kennels. 

A.  Wouvermans  should  have  known  better,  and  made  his 
dogs   better   mannered  if  he   expected   his   pictures  to  be 
hung  up  in  the  parlour  of  refinement. 

B.  Very  true. 

A.  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  have   another  passage  or 
two. 

B.  Excuse   me  :    I    will    imagine   it   all.       I    only   hope, 
Ansard,  this  employment  will  not  interfere  with  your  legal 
practice. 

A.  My  dear  Barnstaple,  it  certainly  will  not,  because  my 
legal  practice  cannot  be  interfered  with.  I  have  been  called 
to  the  bar,  but  find  no  employment  in  my  calling.  I  have 
been  sitting  in  my  gown  and  wig  for  one  year,  and  may  pro- 
bably sit  a  dozen  more  before  I  have  to  rise  to  address  their 
lordships.  I  have  not  yet  had  a  guinea  brief.  My  only 
chance  is  to  be  sent  out  as  judge  to  Sierra  Leone,  or  perhaps 
to  be  made  a  commissioner  of  the  Court  of  Requests. 

B  You  are  indeed  humble  in  your  aspirations.  I  recollect 
the  time,  Ansard,  when  you  dreamt  of  golden  fame,  and 
aspired  to  the  woolsack — when  your  ambition  prompted  you 
to  midnight  labour,  and  you  showed  an  energy — 

A.  (putting  his  hands  up  to  his  forehead,  with  his  elbows  on  the 
table).     What  can  I  do,  Barnstaple  ?     If  I  trust  to  briefs,  my 
existence  will  be  but  brief — we  all  must  live. 

B.  I  will  not  reply  as  Richelieu  did  to  a  brother  author, 
"Je  ne  vois  pas  la  necessite  ;"  but  this  I  do  say,  that  if  you 
are  in  future  to  live  by  supplying  the  public  with  such  non- 
sense, the  shorter  your  existence  the  better. 


819 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  BELL  ROCK 


JL  HERE  was  a  grand  procession  through  the  streets  of  the 
two  towns  of  Perth  and  Dundee.  The  holy  abbots,  in  their 
robes,  walked  under  gilded  canopies,  the  monks  chanted, 
the  censers  were  thrown,  flags  and  banners  were  carried  by 
seamen,  lighted  tapers  by  penitents  ;  St.  Antonio,  the  patron 
of  those  who  trust  to  the  stormy  ocean,  was  carried  in  all 
pomp  through  the  streets ;  and  as  the  procession  passed, 
coins  of  various  value  were  thrown  down  by  those  who 
watched  it  from  the  windows,  and,  as  fast  as  thrown,  were 
collected  by  little  boys  dressed  as  angels,  and  holding  silver 
vessels  to  receive  the  largesses.  During  the  whole  day  did 
the  procession  continue,  and  large  was  the  treasure  collected 
in  the  two  towns.  Every  one  gave  freely,  for  there  were  few, 
indeed  none,  who,  if  not  in  their  own  circle,  at  least  among 
their  acquaintances,  had  not  to  deplore  the  loss  of  some  one 
dear  to  them,  or  to  those  they  visited,  from  the  dangerous 
rock  which  lay  in  the  very  track  of  all  the  vessels  entering 
the  Firth  of  Tay. 

These  processions  had  been  arranged,  that  a  sufficient 
6um  of  money  might  be  collected  to  enable  them  to  put 
in  execution  a  plan  proposed  by  an  adventurous  and  bold 
young  seaman,  in  a  council  held  for  the  purpose,  of  fixing  a 
bell  on  the  rock,  which  could  be  so  arranged  that  the 
slightest  breath  of  wind  would  cause  the  hammer  of  it 
to  sound,  and  thus,  by  its  tolling,  warn  the  mariner  of 
his  danger;  and  the  sums  given  were  more  than  sufficient. 
A  meeting  was  then  held,  and  it  was  unanimously  agreed 
that  Andrew  M'Clise  should  be  charged  with  the  commis- 
sion to  go  over  to  Amsterdam,  and  purchase  the  bell  of 
a  merchant  residing  there,  whom  Andrew  stated  to  have 
313 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

one  in  his  possession,  which,  from  its  fine  tone  and  size, 
was  exactly  calculated  for  the  purpose  to  which  it  was  to 
be  appropriated. 

Andrew  M'Clise  embarked  with  the  money,  and  made  a 
prosperous  voyage.  He  had  often  been  at  Amsterdam,  and 
had  lived  with  the  merchant,  whose  name  was  Vandermaclin  ; 
and  the  attention  to  his  affairs,  the  dexterity  and  the  rapidity 
of  the  movements  of  Andrew  M'Clise,  had  often  elicited  the 
warmest  encomiums  of  Master  Vandermaclin  ;  and  many 
evenings  had  Andrew  M'Clise  passed  with  him,  drinking  in 
moderation  their  favourite  schiedam,  and  indulging  in  the 
meditative  meerschaum.  Vandermaclin  had  often  wished 
that  he  had  a  son  like  Andrew  M'Clise,  to  whom  he  could 
leave  his  property,  with  the  full  assurance  that  the  heap 
would  not  be  scattered,  but  greatly  added  to. 

Vandermaclin  was  a  widower.  He  had  but  one  daughter, 
who  was  now  just  arrived  at  an  age  to  return  from  the  pension 
to  her  father's  house,  and  take  upon  herself  the  domestic 
duties.  M'Clise  had  never  yet  seen  the  beautiful  Katerina. 

"  And  so,  Mynheer  M'Clise,"  said  Vandermaclin,  who  was 
sitting  in  the  warehouse  on  the  ground-floor  of  his  tenement, 
"you  come  to  purchase  the  famous  bell  of  Utrecht,  with  the 
intention  of  fixing  it  upon  that  rock,  the  danger  of  which  we 
have  so  often  talked  over  after  the  work  of  the  day  has  been 
done  ?  I,  too,  have  suffered  from  that  same  rock,  as  you  well 
know ;  but  still  I  have  been  fortunate.  The  price  will  be 
heavy  ;  and  so  it  ought  to  be,  for  the  bell  itself  is  of  no  small 
weight." 

"We  are  prepared  to  pay  it,  Mynheer  Vandermaclin." 

"  Nevertheless,  in  so  good  a  cause,  and  for  so  good  a  pur- 
pose, you  shall  not  be  overcharged.  I  will  say  nothing  of  the 
beauty  of  the  workmanship,  or  even  of  the  mere  manufacture. 
You  shall  pay  but  its  value  in  metal ;  the  same  price  which 
the  Jew  Isaacs  offered  me  for  it  but  four  months  ago.  1  will 
not  ask  what  a  Jew  would  ask,  but  what  a  Jew  would  give, 
which  makes  no  small  difference.  Have  you  ten  thousand 
guilders  ?  " 

"  I  have,  and  more." 

"That  is  my  price,  Mynheer  M'Clise,  and   I  wish  for  no 
more ;  for  I,  too,  will  contribute  my  share  to  the  good  work. 
Are  you  content,  and  is  it  a  bargain  ?  " 
81* 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  BELL  ROCK 

"It  is;  and  the  holy  abbots  will  thank  you  on  vellum^ 
Mynheer  Vandermaclin,  for  your  generosity." 

"  I  prefer  the  thanks  of  the  bold  seamen  to  those  of  the 
idle  churchmen ;  but,  never  mind,  it  is  a  bargain.  Now,  we 
will  go  in ;  it  is  time  to  close  the  doors.  We  will  take 
our  pipes,  and  you  shall  make  the  acquaintance  of  my  fair 
daughter,  Katerina." 

At  the  time  we  are  speaking  of,  M'Clise  was  about  six  and 
twenty  years  of  age;  he  was  above  the  middle  size,  elegant 
in  person,  and  with  a  frankness  and  almost  nobility  in  his 
countenance,  which  won  all  *,vho  caw  him. 

His  manners  were  like  those  of  most  seamen,  bold,  but  not 
offensively  so.  His  eye  \vs.z  piercing  as  an  eagle's :  and  it 
seemed  as  if  his  very  soul  spoke  from  it.  At  the  very  first 
meeting  between  him  and  the  daughter  of  Vandermaclin,  it 
appeared  to  both  as  if  their  destinies  were  to  unite  them. 

They  loved  not  as  others  love,  but  with  an  intensity  which 
it  would  be  impossible  to  portray  ;  yet  they  hardly  exchanged 
a  word.  Again  and  again  they  met ;  their  eyes  spoke,  but 
nothing  more.  The  bell  was  put  on  board  the  vessel,  the 
money  had  been  paid  down,  a.;d  M'Clise  could  no  longer 
delay.  He  felt  as  if  his  heart-strings  were  severed  as  he  tore 
himself  away  from  the  land  where  all  remained  th..t  he  coveted 
upon  earth.  And  KaKrina,  she  too  felt  as  if  her  existence 
Was  a  blank ;  and  as  the  vessel  sailed  from  the  port,  she 
breathed  short ;  and  when  not  even  her  white  and  lofty  top- 
gallant sail  could  be  discovered  as  a  speck,  she  threw  herself 
on  her  coujh  and  wept.  And  M'Clise,  as  lie  sailed  away, 
remain  d  for  hours  leaning  his  cheek  on  his  hand,  thinking 
of,  over  and  over  again,  every  lineament  and  feature  of  the 
peerless  Katerina. 

Two  months  passed  away,  during  which  M'Clise  was  busied 
every  ebb  of  the  tide  in  superintending  the  work  on  the  rock. 
At  last,  all  was  ready  ;  and  once  more  was  to  be  beheld  a  gay 
procession  ;  but  this  time  it  was  on  the  water.  It  was  on  a 
calm  and  lovely  summer's  morn  that  the  abbots  and  the 
monks,  attended  by  a  large  company  of  the  authorities  and 
others  who  were  so  much  interested  in  the  work  in  hand, 
started  from  the  shore  of  Aberbrothwick  in  a  long  line  of 
boats,  decorated  with  sacred  and  with  other  various  banners 
and  devices.  The  music  floated  along  the  water,  and  the 
315 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

solemn  chants  of  the  monks  were  for  once  heard  where  never 
yet  they  had  been  heard  before,  or  ever  will  again.  M'Clise 
was  at  the  rock,  in  a  small  vessel  purposely  constructed  to 
carry  the  bell,  and  with  sheers  to  hang  it  on  the  supports 
imbedded  in  the  solid  rock.  The  bell  was  in  its  place, 
and  the  abbot  blessed  the  bell ;  and  holy  water  was  sprinkled 
on  the  metal,  which  was  for  the  future  to  be  lashed  by  the 
waves  of  the  salt  sea.  And  the  music  and  the  chants  were 
renewed  ;  and  as  they  continued,  the  wind  gradually  rose, 
and  with  the  rising  of  the  wind  the  bell  tolled  loud  and  deep. 
The  tolling  of  the  bell  was  the  signal  for  return,  for  it  was 
a  warning  that  the  weather  was  about  to  change,  and  the 
procession  pulled  back  to  Abcrbrothwick,  and  landed  in 
good  time  ;  for  in  one  hour  more,  and  the  rocky  coast  was 
again  lashed  by  the  waves,  and  the  bell  tolled  loud  and 
quick,  although  there  were  none  there  but  the  sea-gull,  who 
screamed  with  fright  as  he  wheeled  in  the  air  at  this  unusual 
noise  upon  the  rock  which,  at  the  ebb,  he  had  so  often  made 
his  resting-place. 

M'Clise  had  done  his  work  ;  the  bell  was  fixed  ;  and  once 
more  he  hastened  with  his  vessel  to  Amsterdam.  Once 
more  was  he  an  inmate  of  Vandermaclin's  house ;  once  more 
in  the  presence  of  the  idol  of  his  soul.  This  time  they 
spoke :  this  time  their  vows  were  exchanged  for  life  and 
death.  But  Vandermaclin  saw  not  the  state  of  their  hearts. 
He  looked  upon  the  young  seaman  as  too  low,  too  poor, 
to  be  a  match  for  his  daughter ;  and  as  such  an  idea  never 
entered  his  head,  so  did  he  never  imagine  that  he  would 
have  dared  to  love.  But  he  was  soon  undeceived ;  for 
M'Clise  frankly  stilted  his  attachment,  and  demanded  the 
hand  of  Katerina ;  and,  at  the  demand,  Vandermaclin's  face 
was  flushed  with  anger. 

"  Mynheer  M'Clise,"  said  he,  after  a  pause,  as  if  to  con- 
trol his  feelings,  "  when  a  man  marries,  he  is  bound  to  show 
that  he  has  wherewithal  to  support  his  wife ;  to  support 
her  in  that  rank,  and  to  afford  her  those  luxuries  to  which 
she  has  been  accustomed  in  her  father's  house.  Show  me 
that  you  can  do  so,  and  I  will  not  refuse  you  the  hand  of 
Katerina." 

"  As  yet,  I  have  not,"  replied  M'Clise ;  "  but  I  am  young 
and  can  work ;  I  have  money,  and  will  gain  more.  Tell  me, 
SlG 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  BELL  ROCK 

what  sum  do  you  think  that  I  should  possess  to  warrant  my 
demanding  the  hand  of  your  daughter?" 

"  Produce  twelve  thousand  guilders,  and  she  is  yours,"  re- 
plied the  merchant. 

"  I  have  but  three  thousand,"  replied  M'Clise. 

"  Then  think  no  more  of  Katerina.  It  is  a  foolish  passion, 
and  you  must  forget  it.  And,  Mynheer  M'Clise,  I  must  not 
have  my  daughter's  affections  tampered  with.  She  must 
forget  you  ;  and  that  can  only  be  effected  by  your  not 
meeting  again.  I  wish  you  well,  Mynheer  M'Clise,  but  I 
must  request  your  absence." 

M'Clise  departed  from  the  presence  of  the  merchant, 
bowed  down  with  grief  and  disappointment.  He  contrived 
that  a  letter,  containing  the  result  of  his  application,  should 
be  put  in  the  hands  of  Katerina.  But  Vandermaclin  was 
informed  of  this  breach  of  observance,  and  Katerina  was  sent 
to  a  convent,  there  to  remain  until  the  departure  of  her 
lover;  and  Vandermaclin  wrote  to  his  correspondent  at 
Dundee,  requesting  that  the  goods  forwarded  to  him  might 
not  be  sent  by  the  vessel  commanded  by  M'Clise. 

Of  this  our  young  captain  received  information.  All  hope 
was  nearly  gone ;  still  he  lingered,  and  delayed  his  depar- 
ture. He  was  no  longer  the  active,  energetic  seaman ;  he 
neglected  all,  even  his  attire. 

M'Clise  knew  in  which  convent  his  fair  Katerina  had  been 
immured ;  and  often  would  he  walk  round  its  precincts,  with 
the  hope  of  seeing  her,  if  it  were  but  for  a  moment,  but  in 
vain.  His  vessel  was  now  laden,  and  he  could  delay  no 
longer.  He  was  to  sail  the  next  morning ;  and  once  more 
did  the  unhappy  young  man  take  his  usual  walk  to  look  at 
those  walls  which  contained  all  that  was  dear  to  him  on 
earth.  His  reverie  was  broken  by  a  stone  falling  down  at 
his  feet ;  he  took  it  up ;  there  was  a  small  piece  of  paper 
attached  to  it  with  a  silken  thread.  He  opened  it ;  it  was 
the  handwriting  of  Katerina,  and  contained  but  two  words — 
«  The  Bell." 

The  Bell!  M'Clise  started;  for  he  immediately  compre- 
hended what  was  meant.  The  whole  plan  came  like  elec- 
tricity through  his  brain.  Yes  ;  then  there  was  a  promise 
of  happiness.  The  bell  was  worth  ten  thousand  guilders; 
that  sum  had  been  offered,  and  would  now  be  given  by 
317 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

Isaacs  the  Jew.  He  would  be  happy  with  his  Katerina; 
and  he  blessed  her  ingenuity  for  devising  the  means.  For 
a  minute  or  two  he  was  transported  ;  but  the  reaction  soon 
took  place.  What  was  he  about  to  attempt  ?  Sacrilege — 
cruelty.  The  bell  had  been  blessed  by  the  holy  Church  ; 
it  had  been  purchased  by  holy  and  devout  alms.  It  hail 
been  placed  on  the  rock  to  save  the  lives  of  his  brother 
seamen ;  and  were  he  to  remove  it,  would  he  not  be  respon- 
sible for  all  the  lives  lost  ?  Would  not  the  wail  of  the  widow, 
and  the  tears  of  the  orphan,  be  crying  out  to  Heaven  against 
him  ?  No,  no !  never !  The  crime  was  too  horrible  ;  and 
M'Clise  stamped  upon  the  paper,  thinking  he  was  tempted 
by  Satan  in  the  shape  of  woman ;  but  when  woman  tempts, 
man  is  lost.  He  recalled  the  charms  of  Katerina ;  nil  his 
repugnance  was  overcome  ;  and  he  resolved  that  the  deed 
should  be  accomplished,  and  that  Katerina  should  be  gained, 
even  if  he  lost  his  soul. 

Andrew  M'Case  sailed  away  from  Amsterdam,  and  Katerina 
recovered  her  liberty.  Vandermaclin  was  anxious  that  she 
should  marry  :  and  many  were  the  suitors  for  her  hand,  but 
in  vain.  She  reminded  her  father  that  he  had  pledged  him- 
self, if  M'Clise  counted  down  twelve  thousand  guilders,  thnt 
she  should  be  his  wife  ;  and  to  that  pledge  she  insisted  that 
he  was  bound  fast.  And  Vandermaclin,  after  reasoning  with 
her,  and  pointing  out  to  her  that  twelve  thousand  guilders 
was  a  sum  so  large  that  M'Clise  might  not  procure  until  his 
old  age,  even  if  he  were  fortunate,  acknowledged  that  such 
was  his  promise,  and  that  he  would,  like  an  honest  man, 
abide  by  it,  provided  that  M'Clise  should  fulfil  his  part  of  the 
agreement  in  the  space  of  two  years ;  after  which  he  should 
delay  her  settlement  no  longer.  And.  Katerina  raised  her 
eyes  to  heaven,  and  whispered,  as  she  clasped  her  hands, 
"  The  BelL"  Alas  !  that  we  should  invoke  Heaven  when 
we  would  wish  to  do  wrong :  but  mortals  are  blind,  and  none 
so  blind  as  those  who  are  impelled  by  passion. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  that  year  that  M'Clise  had  made 
his  arrangements  :  having  procured  the  assistance  of  some 
lawless  hands,  he  had  taken  the  advantage  of  a  smooth  and 
glassy  sea  and  a  high  tide  to  remove  the  bell  on  lx>ard  his 
own  vessel  ;  a  work  of  little  difficulty  to  him,  as  he  had 
placed  it  there,  and  knew  well  the  fastenings.  He  sailed 
318 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  BELL  ROCK 

away  for  Amsterdam,  and  was  permitted  by  Heaven  to 
arrive  safe  with  his  sacrilegious  freight.  He  did  not,  as 
before,  enter  the  canal  opposite  to  the  house  of  Vander- 
maclin,  but  one  that  ran  behind  the  habitation  of  the  Jew 
Isaacs.  At  night,  he  went  into  the  house,  and  reported  to 
the  Jew  what  he  had  for  sale  ;  and  the  keen  grey  eyes  of  the 
bent-double  little  Israelite  sparkled  with  delight,  for  he 
knew  that  his  profit  would  be  great.  At  midnight  the  bell 
was  made  fast  to  the  crane,  and  safely  deposited  in  the  ware- 
house of  the  Jew,  who  counted  out  the  ten  thousand  guilders 
to  the  enraptured  M'Clise,  whose  thoughts  were  wholly  upon 
the  possession  of  his  Katerina,  and  not  upon  the  crime  he 
had  committed. 

But  alas  !  to  conceal  one  crime  we  are  too  often  obliged 
to  be  guilty  of  even  deeper ;  and  thus  it  was  with  Andrew 
M'Clise.  The  people  who  had  assisted,  upon  the  promise  of 
a  thousand  guilders  being  divided  among  them,  now  mur- 
mured at  their  share,  and  insisted  upon  an  equal  division  of 
the  spoils,  or  threatened  with  an  immediate  confession  of  the 
black  deed. 

M'Clise  raved,  and  cursed,  and  tore  his  hair  ;  promised  to 
give  them  the  money  as  soon  as  he  had  wedded  Katerina ; 
but  they  would  not  consent.  Again  the  devil  came  to  his 
assistance,  and  whispered  how  he  \\as  to  act  :  he  consented. 
The  next  night  the  division  was  to  be  made.  They  met  in 
his  cabin ;  he  gave  them  wine,  and  they  drank  plentifully  ; 
but  the  wine  was  poisoned,  and  they  all  died  before  the 
morning,  M'Clise  tied  weights  to  their  bodies,  and  sank 
them  in  the  deep  canal ;  broke  open  his  hatches,  to  make  it 
appear  that  his  vessel  had  been  plundered  ;  and  then  went  to 
the  authorities  denouncing  his  crew  as  having  plundered  him 
and  escaped.  Immediate  search  was  made,  but  they  were 
not  to  be  found ;  and  it  was  supposed  that  they  had  escaped 
in  a  boat 

Once  more  M'Clise,  whose  conscience  was  seared,  went  to 
the  house  of  Vandermaclin,  counted  down  his  twelve  thousand 
guilders,  and  claimed  his  bride ;  and  Vandermaclin,  who  felt 
that  his  daughter's  happiness  was  at  stake,  now  gave  his 
consent.  As  M'Clise  stated  that  he  was  anxious  to  return  to 
England,  and  arrange  with  the  merchants  whose  goods  had 
been  plundered,  in  a  few  days  the  marriage  took  place  ;  and 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

Katerina  clasped  the  murderer  in  her  arms.  All  was  ap- 
parent joy  and  revelry ;  but  there  was  anguish  in  the  heart 
of  M'Clise,  who,  now  that  he  had  gained  his  object,  felt  that 
it  had  cost  him  much  too  dear,  for  his  peace  of  mind  was 
gone  for  ever.  But  Katerina  cared  not ;  every  spark  of 
feeling  was  absorbed  in  her  passion,  and  the  very  guilt  of 
M'Clise  but  rendered  him  more  dear ;  for  was  it  not  for  her 
that  he  had  done  all  this?  M'Clise  received  her  portion, 
and  hasted  to  sail  away  ;  for  the  bodies  were  still  in  the 
canal,  and  he  trembled  every  hour  lest  his  crime  should  be 
discovered.  And  Vandermaclin  bade  farewell  to  his  daughter  : 
and,  he  knew  not  why,  but  there  was  a  feeling  he  could  not 
suppress,  that  they  never  should  meet  again. 

"  Down — down  below,  Katerina  !  this  is  no  place  for  you," 
cried  M'Clise,  as  he  stood  at  the  helm  of  the  vessel.  "Down* 
dearest,  down,  or  you  will  be  washed  overboard.  Every  sea 
threatens  to  pour  into  our  decks ;  already  have  we  lost  two 
men.  Down,  Katerina  !  down,  I  tell  you  ! " 

"  I  fear  not ;  let  me  remain  with  you." 

"I  tell  you,  down  !"  cried  M'Clise,  in  wrath;  and  Katerina 
cast  upon  him  a  reproachful  look,  and  obeyed. 

The  stonn  was  at  its  height ;  the  sun  had  set ;  black  and 
monstrous  billows  chased  each  other,  and  the  dismasted 
vessel  was  hurried  on  towards  the  land.  The  wind  howled, 
and  whistled  sharply  at  each  chink  in  the  bulwarks  of  the 
vessel.  For  three  days  had  they  fought  the  gale,  but  in 
vain.  Now,  if  it  continued,  all  chance  was  over;  for  the 
shore  was  on  their  lee,  distant  not  many  miles.  Nothing 
could  save  them  but  gaining  the  mouth  of  the  Firth  of  Tay, 
and  then  they  could  bear  up  for  Dundee.  And  there  was 
a  boiling  -surge,  and  a  dark  night,  and  roaring  seas,  and  their 
masts  were  floating  far  away  ;  and  M'Clise  stood  at  the  helm, 
keeping  her  broadside  to  the  sea :  his  heart  was  full  of  bitter- 
ness, and  his  guilty  conscience  bore  him  down,  and  he  looked 
for  death,  and  he  dreaded  it ;  for  was  he  not  a  sacrilegious 
murderer,  and  was  there  not  an  avenging  God  above  ? 

Once  more  Katerina  appeared  on  deck,  clinging  for  support 
to  Andrew. 

"  I  cannot  stay  below.     Tell  me,  will  it  soon  be  over  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  M'Clise  gloomily ;  "  it  will  soon  be  over 
with  all  of  us." 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  BELL  ROCK 

"  How  mean  you  ? — you  told  me  there  was  no  danger." 

"  I  told  you  falsely  ;  there  is  death  soon,  and  damnation 
afterwards  ;  for  you  I  have  lost  my  soul  ! " 

"  Oh  !  say  not  so." 

"  I  say  it.     Leave  me,  leave  me,  woman,  or  I  curse  thee." 

"  Curse  me,  Andrew  ?  Oh  no !  Kiss  me,  Andrew  ;  and 
if  we  are  to  perish,  let  us  expire  in  each  other's  arms." 

"  'Tis  as  well ;  you  have  dragged  me  to  perdition.  Leave 
me,  I  say,  for  you  have  my  bitter  curse." 

Thus  was  his  guilty  love  turned  to  hate,  now  that  death 
was  staring  him  in  the  face. 

Katerina  made  no  reply.  She  threw  herself  on  the  deck, 
and  abandoned  herself  to  her  feeling  of  bitter  anguish.  And 
as  she  lay  there,  and  M'Clise  stood  at  the  helm,  the  wind 
abated ;  the  vessel  was  no  longer  borne  down  as  before, 
although  the  waves  were  still  mountains  high.  The  seamen 
on  board  rallied  ;  some  fragments  of  sail  were  set  on  the  rem- 
nants of  the  masts,  and  there  was  a  chance  of  safety.  M'Clise 
spoke  not,  but  watched  the  helm.  The  wind  shifted  in  their 
favour,  and  hope  rose  in  every  heart.  The  Firth  of  Tay 
was  now  open,  and  they  were  saved  !  Light  was  the  heart 
of  M'Clise  when  he  kept  away  the  vessel,  and  gave  the  helm 
up  to  the  mate.  He  hastened  to  Katerina,  who  still  remained 
on  the  deck,  raised  her  up,  whispered  comfort  and  returning 
love  :  but  she  heard  not — she  could  not  forget — and  she  wept 
bitterly. 

"  We  are  saved,  dear  Katerina  !  " 

"  Better  that  we  had  been  lost ! "  replied  she  mournfully. 

"  No,  no !  say  not  so,  with  your  own  Andrew  pressing  you 
to  his  bosom." 

"  Your  bitter  curse  !  " 

"'Twas  madness— nothing— I  knew  not  what  I  said." 

But  the  iron  had  entered  into  her  soul.  Her  heart  was 
broken. 

"  You  had  better  give  orders  for  them  to  look  out  for  the 
Bell  Rock,"  observed  the  man  at  the  helm  to  M'Clise. 

The  Bell  Rock  !  M'Clise  shuddered,  and  made  no  reply. 
Onward  went  the  vessel,  impelled  by  the  sea  and  wind  :  one 
moment  raised  aloft,  and  towering  over  the  surge  ;  at  another, 
deep  in  the  hollow  trough,  and  walled  in  by  the  convulsed 
element.  M'Clise  still  held  his  Katerina  in  his  arms,  who 
321  x 


OLLA    PODRIDA 

Desponded  not  to  his  endearments,  when  a  sudden  shock  threw 
them  on  the  deck.  The  crashing  of  the  timbers,  the  pour- 
ing of  the  waves  over  the  stern,  the  heeling  and  settling  of 
the  vessel,  were  but  the  work  of  a  few  seconds.  One  more 
furious  shock — she  separates,  falls  on  her  beam-ends,  and 
the  raging  seas  swept  over  her. 

M'Clise  threw  from  him  her  whom  he  had  so  madly  loved, 
and  plunged  into  the  wave.  Katerina  shrieked,  as  she 
dashed  after  him,  and  all  was  over. 

When  the  storm  rises,  and  the  screaming  sea-gull  seeks 
the  land,  and  the  fisherman  hastens  his  bark  towards  the 
beach,  there  is  to  be  seen,  descending  from  the  dark  clouds 
with  the  rapidity  of  lightning,  the  form  of  Andrew  M'Clise, 
the  heavy  bell  to  which  he  is  attached  by  the  neck  bearing 
him  down  to  his  doom. 

And  when  all  is  smooth  and  calm,  when  at  the  ebbing 
tide  the  wave  but  gently  kisses  the  rock,  then  by  the  light 
of  the  silver  moon  the  occupants  of  the  vessels  which 
sail  from  the  Firth  of  Tay  have  often  beheld  the  form  of 
the  beautiful  Katerina,  waving  her  white  scarf  as  a  signal 
that  they  should  approach,  and  take  her  off  from  the  rock 
on  which  she  is  seated.  At  times  she  offers  a  letter  for  her 
father,  Vandermaclin ;  and  she  mourns  and  weeps  as  the 
wary  mariners,  with  their  eyes  fixed  on  her,  and  with  folded 
arms,  pursue  their  course  in  silence  and  in  dread. 


322 


MOONSHINE 

1  HOSE  who  have  visited  our  West  India  possessions  must 
have  often  been  amused  with  the  humour  and  cunning 
which  occasionally  appear  in  a  negro  more  endowed  than 
the  generality  of  his  race,  particularly  when  the  master  also 
happens  to  be  a  humourist.  The  swarthy  servitor  seems 
to  reflect  his  patron's  absurdities  ;  and  having  thoroughly 
studied  his  character,  ascertains  how  far  he  can  venture  to 
take  liberties  without  fear  of  punishment. 

One  of  these  strange  specimens  I  once  met  with  in  a 
negro  called  Moonshine,  belonging  to  a  person  equally 
strange  in  his  own  way,  who  had  for  many  years  held  the 
situation  of  harbour-master  at  Port  Royal,  but  had  then 
retired  on  a  pension,  and  occupied  a  small  house  at  Ryde, 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  His  name  was  Cockle,  but  he  had 
long  been  addressed  as  Captain  Cockle ;  and  this  brevet 
rank  he  retained  until  the  day  of  his  death.  In  person  he 
was  very  large  and  fat — not  unlike  a  cockle  in  shape  ;  so 
round  were  his  proportions,  and  so  unwieldy,  that  it  ap- 
peared much  easier  to  roll  him  along  from  one  place  to 
another  than  that  he  should  walk.  Indeed,  locomotion 
was  not  to  his  taste ;  he  seldom  went  much  farther  than 
round  the  small  patch  of  garden  which  was  in  front  of  his 
house,  and  in  which  he  had  some  pinks  and  carnations  and 
chrysanthemums,  of  which  he  was  not  a  little  proud.  His 
head  was  quite  bald,  smooth,  and  shining  white  ;  his  face 
partook  of  a  more  roseate  tint,  increasing  in  depth  till  it 
settled  into  an  intense  red  at  the  tip  of  his  nose.  Cockle 
had  formerly  been  a  master  of  a  merchant-vessel,  and  from 
his  residence  in  a  warm  climate  had  contracted  a  habit  of 
potation,  which  became  confirmed  during  the  long  period  of 
323 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

his  holding  his  situation  at  Port  Royal.  He  had  purchased 
Moonshine  for  three  hundred  dollars,  when  he  was  about 
seven  years  old,  and,  upon  his  return  to  England,  had  taken 
him  with  him. 

Moonshine  was  very  much  attached  to  his  master,  very 
much  attached  to  having  his  own  way,  and  was^  further,  very 
much  attached  to  his  master's  grog  bottle. 

The  first  attachment  was  a  virtue ;  the  second,  human 
nature ;  and  the  third,  in  the  opinion  of  old  Cockle,  a 
crime  of  serious  magnitude.  I  very  often  called  upon 
Captain  Cockle,  for  he  had  a  quaint  humour  about  him 
which  amused ;  and  as  he  seldom  went  out,  he  was  always 
glad  to  see  any  of  his  friends.  Another  reason  was,  that 
I  seldom  went  to  the  house  without  finding  some  enter- 
tainment in  the  continual  sparring  between  the  master 
and  the  man.  I  was  at  that  time  employed  in  the  Pre- 
ventive Service,  and  my  station  was  about  four  miles  from 
the  residence  of  Cockle.  One  morning  I  stalked  in,  and 
found  him,  as  usual,  in  his  little  parlour  on  the  ground  floor. 

"  Well,  Cockle,  my  boy,  how  are  you  ?  " 

"Why,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  Bob,  I'm  all  wrong.  I'm 
on  the  stool  of  repentance — to  wit,  on  this  easy-chair, 
doing  penance,  as  you  perceive,  in  a  pair  of  duck  trousers. 
Last  night  I  was  half-seas  over  and  tolerably  happy ;  this 
morning  I  am  high  and  dry,  and  intolerably  miserable. 
Carried  more  sail  than  ballast  last  night,  and  lost  my  head  ; 
this  morning  I've  found  it  again,  with  a  pig  of  ballast  in  it, 
I  believe.  All  owing  to  my  good  nature." 

"  How  is  that,  Cockle?" 

"  Why,  that  Jack  Piper  was  here  last  night ;  and  rather 
than  he  should  drink  all  the  grog  and  not  find  his  way 
home,  I  drank  some  myself — he'd  been  in  a  bad  way  if  I 
had  not,  poor  fellow  ! — and  now,  you  see,  I'm  suffering,  all 
from  good  nature.  Easiness  of  disposition  has  been  my 
ruin,  and  has  rounded  me  into  this  ball,  by  wearing  away 
all  my  sharp  edges,  Bob." 

"  It  certainly  was  very  considerate  and  very  kind  of  you, 
Cockle,  especially  when  we  know  how  much  you  must  have 
acted  at  variance  with  your  inclinations.'' 

"  Yes,  Bob,  yes ;  I  am  the  milk-punch  of  human  kindness. 
I  often  cry — when  the  chimney  smokes  ;  and  sometimes — • 


MOONSHINE 

when  I  laugh  too  much.  You  see,  I  not  only  give  my 
money,  as  others  will  do,  but,  as  last  night,  I  even  give  my 
head  to  assist  a  fellow-creature.  I  could,  however,  dispense 
with  it  for  an  hour  or  two  this  morning." 

"Nay,  don't  say  that;  for  although  you  might  dispense 
with  the  upper  part,  you  could  not  well  get  on  without  your 
mouth,  Cockle." 

"  Very  true,  Bob ;  a  chap  without  a  mouth  would  be  like 
a  ship  without  a  companion-hatch  ; — talking  about  that,  the 
combings  of  my  mouth  are  rather  dry — what  do  you  say, 
Bob,  shall  we  call  Moonshine  ?  " 

"  Why,  it's  rather  broad  daylight  for  Moonshine." 

"He's  but  an  eclipse — a  total  eclipse,  I  may  say.  The 
fact  is,  my  head  is  so  heavy  that  it  rolls  about  on  my 
shoulders ;  and  I  must  have  a  stiffener  down  my  throat 
to  prop  it  up.  So,  Moonshine,  shine  out,  you  black  faced 
rascal ! " 

The  negro  was  outside,  cleaning  his  knives :  he  answered, 
but  continued  at  his  work. 

"  How  me  shine,  Massa  Cockle,  when  you  neber  gib  me 
shiner  ?" 

"  No :  but  I'll  give  you  a  skinner  on  your  lower  limb,  that 
shall  make  you  feel  planet-struck,  if  you  don't  show  your 
ugly  face,"  replied  Cockle. 

"  Massa  Cockle,  you  full  of  dictionary  dis  marning." 

"  Come  here,  sir  !  " 

"Why  you  so  parsonal  dis  marning,  sar  ? "  replied  Moon- 
shine, rubbing  away  at  the  knifeboard — "my  face  no  shine 
more  dan  your  white  skull  widout  hair." 

"  I  pulled  one  out,  you  scoundrel,  every  time  you  stole 
my  grog,  and  now  they  are  all  gone.  Hairs ! — what  should 
I  do  with  heirs  when  I've  nothing  to  leave  ?"  continued 
Cockle,  addressing  me — "hairs  are  like  rats,  that  quit  a 
ship  as  soon  as  she  gets  old.  Now,  Bob,  I  wonder  how 
long  that  rascal  will  make  us  wait.  I  brought  him  home 
and  gave  him  his  freedom — but  give  an  inch  and  he  takes 
an  ell.  Moonshine,  I  begin  to  feel  angry— the  tip  of  my 
nose  is  red  already." 

"Come  directly,  Massa  Cockle." 

Moonshine  gave  two  more  rubs  on  the  board,  and  then. 
made  his  appearance. 

325 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  You  call  me,  sar  ? " 

"  What's  the  use  of  calling  you,  you  black  rascal  ?  " 

"  Now,  sar,  dat  not  fair — you  say  to  me,  Moonshine,  always 
do  one  thing  first — so  I  'bey  order  and  finish  knives — dat 
ting  done,  I  come  and  'bey  nest  order." 

"  Well,  bring  some  cold  water  and  some  tumblers." 

Moonshine  soon  appeared  with  the  articles,  and  then 
walked  out  of  the  room,  grinning  at  me. 

"Moonshine,  where  are  you  going,  you  thief? — when  did 
you  ever  see  me  drink  cold  water,  or  offer  it  to  my  friends  ?  " 

"  Neber  see  you  drink  it  but  once,  and  den  you  tipsy,  and 
tink  it  gin  ;  but  you  very  often  gib  notin  but  water  to  your 
friends,  Massa  Cockle." 

"  When,  you  scoundrel  ?  " 

"  Why,  very  often  you  say  dat  water  quite  strong  enough 
for  me." 

"  That's  because  I  love  you,  Moonshine.  Grog  is  a  sad 
enemy  to  us." 

"  Massa  Cockle  real  fine  Christian — he  lub  him  enemy," 
interrupted  Moonshine,  looking  at  me. 

"  At  all  events,  I'm  not  ashamed  to  look  mine  enemy  in 
the  face — so  hand  us  out  the  bottle." 

Moonshine  put  the  bottle  on  the  table. 

"  Now,  Bob,"  said  Cockle,  "  what  d'ye  say  to  a  seven 
bell-er  ?  Why,  hallo  !  what's  become  of  all  the  grog  ?  " 

"  All  drunk  last  night,  Massa  Cockle,"  replied  Moonshine. 

"Now,  you  ebony  thief,  I'll  swear  that  there  was  half  a 
bottle  left  when  I  took  my  last  glass ;  for  I  held  the  bottle 
up  to  the  candle  to  ascertain  the  ullage." 

"  When  you  go  up  tairs,  Massa  Cockle,  so  help  me  Gad ! 
not  one  drop  left  in  de  bottle." 

"Will  you  take  your  oath,  Moonshine,  that  you  did  not 
drink  any  last  night  ?" 

"  No,  Massa  Cockle,  because  I  gentleman,  and  neber  tell 
lie — me  drink,  because  you  gib  it  to  me." 

"Then,  I  must  have  been  drunk  indeed.  Now,  tell  me, 
how  did  I  give  it  to  you  ?— tell  me  every  word  which 
passed." 

<(  Yes,  Massa  Cockle,  me  make  you  recollect  all  about  it. 
When  Massa  Piper  go  away,  you  look  at  bottle  and  den  you 
gay,  '  Fore  I  go  up  to  bed,  I  take  one  more  glass  for  coming 
326 


MOONSHINE 

up'  Den  I  say,  ''Pose  you  do,  you  neber  be  able  to  go  up. 
Den  you  say,  '  Moonshine,  you  good  fellow '  (you  always 
call  me  good  fellow  when  you  want  me),  'you  must  help 
me.'  You  drink  you  grog— you  fall  back  in  de  chair, 
and  you  shut  first  one  eve,  and  den  you  shut  de  oder.  I 
see  more  grog  on  the  table :  so  I  take  up  de  bottel  and 
I  say,  '  Massa  Cockle,  you  go  up  'tairs  ? '  and  you  say, 
'Yes,  yes — directly.'  Den  I  hold  de  bottel  up  and  say  to 
you,  'Massa,  shall  I  help  you?'  and  you  say,  'Yes,  you 
must  kelp  me.'  So  den  I  take  one  glass  of  grog,  'cause 
you  tell  me  to  help  you." 

"  I  didn't  tell  you  to  help  yourself,  though,  you  scoundrel1" 

"Yes,  Massa,  when  you  tell  me  to  help  you  with  de 
bottel,  I  'bey  order,  and  help  myself.  Den,  sar,  I  waits 
little  more,  and  I  say,  '  Massa,  now  you  go  up  'tairs,'  and 
you  start  up  and  you  wake,  and  you  say,  '  Yes,  yes ; '  and 
den  I  hold  up  and  show  you  bottel  again,  and  I  say,  '  Shall 
I  help  you,  Massa?'  and  den  you  say  'Yes.'  So  I  'bey 
order  again,  and  take  one  more  glass.  Den  you  open 
mouth  and  you  snore — so  I  look  again  and  I  see  one  little 
glass  more  in  bottel,  and  I  call  you,  '  Massa  Cockle,  Massa 
Cockle,'  and  you  say,  '  High — high  '  '• — and  den  you  head 
fall  on  you  chest,  and  you  go  sleep  again — so  den  I  call 
again  and  I  say,  '  Massa  Cockle  here  one  lilly  more  drop, 
shall  I  drink  it?'  and  you  nod  your  head  on  you  bosom, 
and  say  noting — so  I  not  quite  sure,  and  I  say  again,  '  Massa 
Cockle,  shall  I  finish  this  lilly  drop  ? '  and  you  nod  you 
head  once  more.  Den  I  say,  '  All  right,'  and  I  say,  '  You 
very  good  helt,  Massa  Cockle ; '  and  I  finish  de  bottel. 
Now,  Massa,  you  ab  de  whole  'tory,  and  it  all  really  for 
true." 

I  perceived  that  Cockle  was  quite  as  much  amused  at 
this  account  of  Moonshine's  as  I  was  myself,  but  he  put 
on  a  bluff  look. 

"So,  sir,  it  appears  that  you  took  advantage  of  my  helpless 
situation  to  help  yourself." 

"Massa  Cockle,  just  now  you  tell  Massa  Farren  dat  you 
drink  so  much,  all  for  good  nature.  Massa  Piper — I  do  same 
all  for  good  nature." 

"Well,  Mr,  Moonshine,  I  must  have  some  grog,"  replied 
Cockle,  "and  as  you  helped  yourself  last  night,  now  you 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

must  help  me ;  get  it  how  you  can ;  I  give  you  just  ten 
minutes — 

"'Pose  you  gib  me  ten  shillings,  sar/'  interrupted  Moon- 
shine :  "  dat  better." 

"Cash  is  all  gone.  I  haven't  a  skillick  till  quarter-day, 
not  a  shot  in  the  locker  till  Wednesday.  Either  get  me 
some  more  grog,  or  you'll  get  more  kicks  than  halfpence." 

"  You  no  ab  money — you  no  ab  tick — how  I  get  grog, 
Massa  Cockle?  Missy  O* Bottom,  she  tells  me,  last  quarter- 
day,  no  pay  whole  bill,  she  not  half  like  it ;  she  say  you  great 
deceiver,  and  no  trust  more." 

"  Confound  the  old  hag !  Would  you  believe  it,  Bob, 
that  Mrs.  llow bottom  has  wanted  to  grapple  with  me  these 
last  two  years — wants  to  make  me  landlord  of  the  Goose 
and  Pepper- Box,  taking  her  as  a  fixture  with  the  premises  ? 
I  suspect  I  should  be  the  goose  and  she  the  pepper-box ; 
• — but  we  never  could  shape  that  course.  In  the  first 
place,  there's  too  much  of  her;  and,  in  the  next,  there's 
too  much  of  me.  1  explained  this  to  the  old  lady  as  well 
as  I  could ;  and  she  swelled  up  as  big  as  a  balloon,  saying, 
that,  when  people  were  really  attached,  they  never  attached 
any  weight  to  such  trifling  obstacles." 

"  But  you  must  have  been  sweet  upon  her,  Cockle  ? " 

"  Nothing  more  than  a  little  sugar  to  take  the  nauseous 
taste  of  my  long  bill  out  of  her  mouth.  As  for  the  love 
part  of  the  story,  that  was  all  her  own.  I  never  contradict 
a  lady,  because  it's  not  polite  ;  but  since  I  explained,  the 
old  woman  has  huffed,  and  won't  trust  me  with  half  a 
quartern — will  she,  Moonshine  ?  " 

"  No,  sar :  when  I  try  talk  her  ober,  and  make  promise, 
she  say  dat  all  moonshine.  But,  sar,  I  try  'gain — I  tink  I 
know  how."  And  Moonshine  disappeared,  leaving  us  in 
the  dark  as  to  what  his  plans  might  be. 

"I  wonder  you  never  did  marry,  Cockle,"  I  observed. 

"  You  would  not  wonder  if  you  knew  all.  I  must  say,  that 
once,  and  once  only,  I  was  very  near  it.  And  to  whom  do 
you  think  it  was — a  woman  of  colour." 

"  A  black  woman  ?  " 

"  No ;  not  half  black,  only  a  quarter — what  they  call  a 
quadroon  in  the  West  Indies.  But,  thank  Heaven !  she 
refused  me." 


MOONSHINE 

"  Refused  you  ? — hang  it,  Cockle.  I  never  thought  that 
you  had  been  refused  by  a  woman  of  colour." 

"  I  was,  though.  You  shall  hear  how  it  happened.  She 
had  been  the  quadroon  wife  (you  know  what  that  means) 
of  a  planter  of  the  name  of  Guiness ;  he  died,  and  not 
only  bequeathed  her  her  liberty,  but  also  four  good  houses 
in  Port  Royal,  and  two  dozen  slaves.  He  had  been  dead 
about  two  years,  and  she  was  about  thirty,  when  I  first 
knew  her.  She  was  very  rich,  for  she  had  a  very  good 
income  and  spent  nothing,  except  in  jewels  and  dress  to 
deck  out  her  own  person,  which  certainly  was  very  hand- 
sone,  even  at  that  time,  for  she  never  had  had  any  family. 
Well,  if  I  was  not  quite  in  love  with  her,  I  was  \vith 
her  houses  and  her  money ;  and  I  used  to  sit  in  her 
verandah  and  talk  sentimental.  One  day  I  made  my  pro- 
posal. '  Massa  Cockle,'  said  she,  '  dere  two  ting  I  not  like ; 
one  is,  I  not  like  your  name.  'Pose  I  'cept  you  offer,  you 
must  change  you  name.' 

"'Suppose  you  accept  my  offer,  Mistress  Guiness,  you'll 
change  your  name.  I  don't  know  how  I  am  to  change 
mine,'  I  replied. 

" '  I  make  'quiry,  Massa  Cockle,  and  I  find  that  by  Act 
and  Parliament  you  get  another  name.' 

" '  An  Act  of  Parliament  ! '     I  cried. 

"'Yes,  sar ;  and  I  pay  five  hundred  gold  Joe  'fore  I  hear 
people  call  me  Missy  Cockle — dat  shell-fish,'  said  she,  and 
she  turned  up  her  nose. 

"'Humph!'  said  I,  'and  pray  what  is  the  next  thing 
which  you  wish  ? ' 

" '  De  oder  ting,  sar,  is,  you  no  ab  coat  am  arms,  no  ab  seal 
to  your  watch,  with  bird  and  beast  'pon  'em ;  now  'pose  you 
promise  me  dat  you  take  oder  name,  and  buy  um  coat  am 
arms  ;  den,  sar,  I  take  de  matter  into  'sideration.' 

"'Save  yourself  the  trouble,  ma'am,'  said  I,  jumping 
up  ;  '  my  answer  is  short — I'll  see  you  and  your  whole  gene- 
ration hanged  first ! '  " 

"  Well,  that  was  a  very  odd  sort  of  a  wind-up  to  a 
proposal ;  but  here  comes  Moonshine." 

The  black  entered  the  room,  and  put  a  full  bottle  down 
on  the  table. 

"Dare  it  is,  sar,"  said  he,  grinning. 
329 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  Well  done,  Moonshine  ;  now  I  forgive  you  ;  but  how  did 
you  manage  it  ?  " 

"Me  tell  you  all  de  'tory,  sar — first  I  see  Missy  O' Bottom, 
and  I  say,  '  How  you  do,  how  you  find  himsel  dis  marning  ? 
Massa  come,  I  tink,  by-an'-by,  but  he  almost  'fraid,'  I  said. 
She  say,  '  What  he  'fraid  for  ? '  '  He  tink  you  angry — not 
like  see  him — no  lub  him  any  more :  he  very  sorry,  very 
sick  at  'art — he  very  much  in  lub  wid  you.' " 

"  The  devil  you  did  ! "  roared  Cockle ;  "  now  I  shall  be 
bothered  again  with  that  old  woman ;  I  wish  she  was  moored 
as  a  buoy  to  the  Royal  George." 

"  Massa  no  hear  all  yet.  I  say,  '  Miss  O'Bottom,  'pose  you 
no  tell  ? '  I  tell.  '  Massa  call  for  clean  shirt  dis  marning, 
and  I  say,  "  It  no  clean  shirt  day,  sar ; "  he  say,  "  Bring  me 
clean  shirt;"  and  den  he  put  him  on  clean  shirt,  and  he  put 
him  on  clean  duck  trousers ;  he  make  me  brush  him  best 
blue  coat.  I  say,  "  What  all  dis  for,  Massa  ?  "  He  put  him 
hand  up  to  him  head,  and  he  fetch  him  breath  and  say — "  I 
'fraid  Missy  O'Bottom  no  hear  me  now — I  no  hab  courage  ;  " 
and  den  he  sit  all  dress  ready ;  and  no  go.  Den  he  say, 
"  Moonshine,  gib  me  one  glass  grog,  den  I  hab  courage."  I 
go  fetch  bottel,  and  all  grog  gone — not  one  lilly  drop  left ; 
den  Massa  fall  down  plump  in  him  big  chair,  and  say,  "I 
neber  can  go."  '  '  But,'  say  Missy  O'Bottom,  'why  he  no  send 
for  some  ? '  '  'Cause,'  I  say,  '  quarter-day  no  come — money  all 
gone.' — Den  say  she,  'If  you  poor  Massa  so  very  bad,  den  I 
trust  you  one  bottel — you  gib  my  compliments  and  say,  I 
very  'appy  to  see  him,  and  stay  at  home.'  Den  I  say,  '  Missy 
O'Bottom,  'pose  Massa  not  come  soon  as  he  take  one  two 
glass  grog,  cut  my  head  off.'  Dat  all,  sar," 

"  That's  all,  is  it  ?  A  pretty  scrape  you  have  got  me  into, 
you  scoundrel !  What's  to  be  done  now  ?  " 

"  Why,  let's  have  a  glass  of  grog  first,  Cockle,"  replied  I ; 
"  we've  been  waiting  a  long  while  for  it,  and  we'll  then  talk 
the  matter  over." 

"  Bob,  you're  sensible,  and  the  old  woman  was  no  fool  in 
sending  the  liquor — it  requires  Dutch  courage  to  attack  such 
a  Dutch-built  old  schuyt ;  let's  get  the  cobwebs  out  of  our 
throats,  and  then  we  must  see  how  we  can  get  out  of  this 
scrape.  I  expect  that  I  shall  pay  '  dearly  for  my  whistle ' 
this  time  I  wet  mine.  Now,  what's  to  be  done,  Bob  ?  " 
330 


MOONSHINE 

"  I  think  that  you  had  better  leave  it  to  Moonshine/'  said  I. 

"  So  I  will.  Now,  sir,  as  you  have  got  me  into  this  scrape, 
you  must  get  me  out  of  it.  D'ye  hear  ? " 

"  Yes,  Massa  Cockle,  I  tink — but  no  ab  courage." 

" I  understand  you,  you  sooty  fellow— here,  drink  this,  and 
see  if  it  will  brighten  up  your  wits.  He's  a  regular  turnpike, 
that  fellow,  everything  must  pay  toll." 

"Massa  Cockle,  I  tell  Missy  O'Bottom  dat  you  come  soon 
as  you  hab  two' glass  grog;  'pose  you  only  drink  one." 

"That  won't  do,  Moonshine,  for  I'm  just  mixing  my  second; 
you  must  find  something  better." 

"  One  glass  grog,  massa,  gib  no  more  dan  one  tought— dat 
you  ab " 

"Well,  then,  here's  another.  Now  recollect,  before  you 
drink  it,  you  are  to  get  me  out  of  this  scrape  ;  if  not,  you  get 
into  a  scrape,  for  I'll  beat  you  as — as  white  as  snow." 

"  'Pose  you  no  wash  nigger  white,  you  no  mangle  him  white, 
Massa  Cockle,"  added  Moonshine. 

"The  fellow's  ironing  me,  Bob,  arn't  he?"  said  Cockle, 
laughing.  "  Now,  before  you  drink,  recollect  the  conditions." 

"Drink  first,  sar,  make  sure  of  dat,"  replied  Moonshine, 
swallowing  off  the  brandy  ;  "  tink  about  it  arter\vards.— Eh  ! 
I  ab  it,"  cried  Moonshine,  who  disappeared,  and  Cockle  and 
I  continued  in  conversation  over  our  grog,  which  to  sailors  is 
acceptable  in  any  one  hour  in  the  twenty-four.  About  ten 
minutes  afterwards  Cockle  perceived  Moonshine  in  the  little 
front  garden.  "  There's  that  fellow,  Bob  ;  what  is  he  about  ?  " 

"  Only  picking  a  nosegay,  I  believe,"  replied  I,  looking 
out  of  the  window. 

"  The  rascal,  he  must  be  picking  all  my  chrysanthemums. 
Stop  him,  Bob." 

But  Moonshine  vaulted  over  the  low  pales,  and  there  was 
no  stopping  him.  It  was  nearly  an  hour  before  he  returned  ; 
and  when  he  came  in,  we  found  that  he  was  dressed  out  in 
his  best,  looking  quite  a  dandy,  and  with  some  of  his  master's 
finest  flowers,  in  a  large  nosegay,  sticking  in  his  waistcoat. 

"  All  right,  sar,  all  right ;  dat  last  glass  grog  gib  me^  fine 
idee  ;  you  neber  ab  more  trouble  'bout  Missy  O'Bottom." 

"Well,  let's  hear,"  said  Cockle. 

"I  dress  mysel  bery  'pruce,  as  you  see,  massa.     I   take 

nosegay " 

331 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

"  Yes,  I  see  that,  and  be  hanged  to  you." 

"  Neber  mind,  Massa  Cockle.  I  say  to  Missy  O'Bottom, 
'  Massa  no  able  come,  he  very  sorry,  so  he  send  me.'  f  Well,' 
she  say,  '  what  you  ab  to  say,  sit  down,  Moonshine,  you  very 
nice  man.'  Den  I  say,  'Massa  Cockle  lub  you  very  much, 
he  tink  all  day  how  he  make  you  appy ;  den  he  say,  "  Missy 
O'Bottom  very  fine  'oman,  make  very  fine  wife." '  Den 
Missy  O'Bottom  say,  '  'Top  a  moment,'  and  she  bring  a  bottcl 
from  cupboard,  and  me  drink  something  did  make  'tomach 
feel  really  warm  ;  and  den  she  say,  '  Moonshine,  what  you 
massa  say  ? '  den  I  say,  '  Massa  say,  "  You  fine  'oman,  make 
good  wife;"  but  he  shake  um  head,  and  say  "I  very  old 
man,  no  good  for  noting ;  I  tink  all  day  how  I  make  her 
appy,  and  I  find  out — Moonshine,  you  young  man,  you  'and- 
some  feller,  you  good  servant,  I  not  like  you  go  away,  but 
I  tink  you  make  Missy  O'Bottom  very  fine  'usband:  so  I 
not  care  for  myself,  you  go  to  Missy  O'Bottom,  and  tell 
I  send  you,  dat  I  part  wid  you,  and  give  you  to  her  for 
'usband."  ' 

Cockle  and  I  burst  out  laughing.  "  Well,  and  what  did 
Mrs.  Rowbottom  say  to  that ?  ' 

"She  jump  up,  and  try  to  catch  me  hair,  but  I  bob  my 
head,  and  she  miss ;  den  she  say,  '  You  filthy  black  rascal, 
you  tell  you  massa,  'pose  he  ever  come  here,  I  break  his 
white  bald  pate ;  and  'pose  you  ever  come  here,  I  smash  you 
woolly  black  skull.'  Dat  all,  Massa  Cockle  ;  you  see  all  right 
now,  and  I  quite  dry  wid  talking." 

"  All  right !  do  you  call  it  f  I  never  meant  to  quarrel  with 
the  old  woman  ;  what  d'ye  think,  Bob — is  it  all  right  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  must  either  have  quarrelled  with  her,  or  mar- 
ried her,  that's  clear  " 

"Well,  then,  I'm  clear  of  her,  and  so  it's  all  right.  It 
ain't  every  man  who  can  get  out  of  matrimony  by  sacrificing 
a  nosegay  and  two  glasses  of  grog  " 

"Tree  glasses,  Massa  Cockle,'   said  Moonshine. 

"Well,  three  glasses;  here  it  is,  you  dog,  and  it's  dog 
cheap,  too.  Thank  God,  next  Wednesday's  quarter-day.  Bob, 
you  must  dine  with  me — cut  the  service  for  to-day." 

"With  all  my  heart,"  said  I,  "and  I'll  salve  my  conscience 
by  walking  the  beach  all  night ;  but,  Cockle,  look  here, 
there  is  but  a  drop  in  the  bottle,  and  you  have  no  more.  I 
332 


MOONSHINE 

am  like  you,  with  a  clean-swept  hold.  You  acknowledge  the 
difficulty  ?  " 

"  It  stares  me  in  the  face,  Bob ;  what  must  be  done  ?  " 

"I'll  tell  you  —  in  the  first  place,  what  have  you  for 
dinner  ?  " 

"  Moonshine,  what  have  we  got  for  dinner  ?  " 

"  Dinner,  sar  ? — me  not  yet  tink  about  dinner.  What  you 
like  to  ab,  sar  ?  " 

"  What  have  we  got  in  the  house,  Moonshine  ?  " 

"  Let  me  see,  sar  ?  first  place,  we  ab  very  fine  piece  picklum 

pork  ;  den  we  have  picklum  pork ;  and  den — let  me  tink 

den  we  ab,  we  ab  picklum  pork,  sar." 

"  The  long  and  the  short  of  it  is,  Bob,  that  we  have  nothing 
but  a  piece  of  pickled  pork  ;  can  you  dine  off  that  ?  " 

"  Can  a  duck  swim,  Cockle  !  " 

"  Please,  sar,  we  ab  plenty  pea  for  dogbaddi/,"  said  Moon- 
shine. 

"  Well,  then,  Cockle,  as  all  that  is  required  is  to  put  the 
pot  on  the  fire,  you  can  probably  spare  Moonshine,  after  he 
has  done  that,  and  we  will  look  to  the  cookery ;  start  him  off 
with  a  note  to  Mr.  Johns,  and  he  can  bring  back  a  couple  of 
bottles  from  my  quarters." 

"  Really  dat  very  fine  tought,  Massa  Farren  ;  I  put  in  pork, 
and  den  I  go  and  come  back  in  one  hour." 

"That  you  never  will,  Mr.  Moonshine  ;  what's  o'clock  now? 
— mercy  on  us,  how  time  flies  in  your  company,  Cockle  ;  it  is 
nearly  four  o'clock  ;  it  will  be  dark  at  six." 

"  Neber  mind,  sar,  me  always  ab  moonshine  whereber  I  go," 
said  the  black,  showing  his  teeth. 

"  It  will  take  two  hours  to  boil  the  pork,  Bob  ;  that  fellow 
has  been  so  busy  this  morning  that  he  has  quite  forgot  the 
dinner." 

"  All  you  business,  Massa  Cockle." 

"Very  true;  but  now  start  as  soon  as  you  can,  and  come 
back  as  soon  as  you  can  ;  here's  the  note." 

Moonshine  took  the  note,  looked  at  the  direction,  as  if  he 
could  read  it,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was  seen  to  depart. 

"  And  now,  Cockle,"  said  I,  "  as  Moonshine  will  be 
gone  some  time,  suppose  you  spin  us  a  yarn  to  pass  away 
the  time." 

"  I'll  tell  you  what,  Bob,  I  am  not  quite  so  good  at  that  as 
333 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

1  used  to  be.  I've  an  idea  that  when  my  pate  became  bald, 
my  memory  oozed  away  by  insensible  perspiration." 

"  Never  mind,  you  must  have  something  left,  you  can't  be 
quite  empty." 

"  No,  but  my  tumbler  is;  so  I'll  just  fill  that  up,  and  then 
I'll  tell  you  how  it  was  that  I  came  to  go  to  sea." 

"The  very  thing  that  I  should  like  to  hear,  above  all 
others." 

"  Well,  then,  you  must  know  that,  like  cockles  in  general, 
I  was  born  on  the  sea-shore,  just  a  quarter  of  a  mile  out  of 
Dover,  towards  Shakspeare's  Cliff.  My  father  was  a  fisher- 
man by  profession,  and  a  smuggler  by  practice — all  was  fish 
that  came  to  his  net;  but  his  cottage  was  small,  he  was 
supposed  to  be  very  poor,  and  a  very  bad  fisherman,  for  he 
seldom  brought  home  many  ;  but  there  was  a  reason  for  that: 
he  very  seldom  put  his  nets  overboard.  His  chief  business 
lay  in  taking  out  of  vessels  coming  down  Channel  goods  which 
were  shipped  and  bonded  for  exportation,  and  running  them 
on  shore  again.  You  know,  Bob,  that  there  are  many  articles 
which  are  not  permitted  to  enter  even  upon  paying  duty,  and 
when  these  goods,  such  as  silks,  &c.,  are  seized  or  taken  in 
prizes,  they  are  sold  for  exportation.  Now,  it  was  then  the 
custom  for  vessels  to  take  them  on  board  in  the  river,  and  run 
them  on  shore  as  they  went  down  Channel,  and  the  fishing- 
boats  were  usually  employed  for  this  service ;  mv  father  was 
a  well-known  )iand  for  this  kind  of  work,  for  not  being 
suspected,  he  was  always  fortunate  ;  of  course,  had  he  once 
been  caught,  they  would  have  had  their  eyes  upon  him  after 
he  had  suffered  his  punishment.  Now,  the  way  my  father 
used  to  manage  was  this :  there  was  a  long  tunnel-drain  from 
some  houses  used  as  manufactories,  about  a  hundred  yards 
above  his  cottage,  which  extended  out  into  the  sea  at  low- 
water  mark,  and  which  passed  on  one  side  of  our  cottage. 
My  father  had  cut  from  a  cellar  in  the  cottage  into  the 
drain,  and  as  it  was  large  enough  for  a  man  to  kneel  down 
in,  he  used  to  come  in  at  low-water  with  his  coble,  and  make 
fast  the  goods,  properly  secured  from  the  wet  and  dirt  in 
tarpaulin  bags,  to  a  rope,  which  led  from  the  cellar  to  the 
sea  through  the  drain.  When  the  water  had  flowed  suffici- 
ently to  cover  the  mouth  of  the  drain,  he  then  threw  the 
bags  overboard,  and,  securing  the  boat,  went  to  the  cottage, 
334 


MOONSHINE 

hauled  up  the  articles,  and  secured  them  too;  d'ye  under- 
stand ?     My  father  had  no  one  to  assist  him  but  my  brother 
who  was  a  stout  fellow,  seven  years  older  than  n^se  ?,  and 
2l™hused-  Th    r     1°  gh'e  S  helPin£-h-d  when  i-equired ; 
was  rtht   £      A6-**!  hlS  C°UnSe1'  Snd  Sr°W  rich.     When  al 
was  right,  he  got  his  boat  over  into  the  harbour,  and  having 
secured  her   he  came  home  as  innocent  as  a  lamb      I  wa? 
then  about  eight  or  nine  years  old,  and  went  with  my  father 
aru    brother  in  the  coble,  for  she  required  three  ha'nds    at 
east,  to  manage  her  properly,  and  like  a  tin-pot,  although 
not  very  big,     was  very  useful.     Now,  it  so  happened  tlfat 
my  father  had  notice  that  a  brig,  lying  in  Dover  harbour 
would  sail  the  next  day,  and  that  she  had  on  board  of  her 
a  quantity  of  lace  and  silks,  purchased  at  the  Dover  custom- 
house for  exportation,  which  he  was  to  put  on  shore  again 
to  be  sent  up  to  London.     The  sending  up  to  London  we 
had  nothing  to  do  with;  the  agent  at  Dover  managed  all 
that ;  we  only  left  the  articles  at  his  house,  and  then  received 
the  money  on  the  nail.     We  went  to  the  harbour,  where  we 
iound   the   brig  hauling  out,   so  we   made   all  haste  to  get 
away  before  her.     It  blew  fresh  from  the  northward  and  east- 
ward,  and  there  was  a  good   deal   of  sea  running      As  we 
were  shoving  out,  the  London  agent,  a  jolly  little  round-faced 
fellow,  in  black  clothes,  and  a  bald  white  head,  called  to  us 
and  said  that  he  wanted  to  board  a  vessel  in  the  offing,  and 
asked  whether  we  would  take  him.     This  was  all  a  r?se  as 
he  intended   to  go  on  board  of  the  brig  with  us  to  settle 
matters,  and  then  return  in  the  pilot-boat.     Well,  we  hoisted 
our  jib,  drew  aft  our  foresheet,  and  were  soon  clear  of  the 
harbour;    but  we   found    that  there  was  a   devil  of  a  sea 
running,  and   more   wind   than  we   bargained  for;   the  brig 
came  out  of  the  harbour  with  a  flowing  sheet,  and  we  lowered 
down  the  foresail  to  reef  it— father  and  brother  busy  about 
that,  while  I  stood  at  the  helm,  when  the  agent  said  to  me, 
'When  do  you   mean    to  make   a  voyage?'      'Sooner  than 
lather  thinks  for/  said  I,  'for  I  want  to  see  the  world.'     It 
was  sooner  than    I   thought  for  too,  as  you  shall  hear.     As 
soon  as  the  brig  was  well  out,  we  ran  down  to  her,  and  with 
some  difficulty  my  father  and  the  agent  got   on  board,  for 
the  sea  was  high  and  cross,  the  tide  setting  against  the  wind. 
My  brother  and  I  were  left  in  the  boat  to  follow  in  the  wak<j 

Q«R 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

of  the  brig;  but  as  my  brother  was  casting  off  the  rope 
forward,  his  leg  caught  in  the  bight,  and  into  the  sea  he 
went ;  however,  they  hauled  him  on  board,  leaving  me  alone 
in  the  coble.  It  was  not  of  much  consequence,  .as  I  could 
manage  to  follow  before  the  wind  under  easy  sail,  without 
assistance  ;  so  I  kept  her  in  the  wake  of  the  brig,  both  of 
us  running  nearly  before  it  at  the  rate  of  five  miles  an  hour, 
waiting  till  my  father  should  have  made  up  his  packages  of  a 
proper  size  to  walk  through  the  tunnel  drain. 

"The  Channel  was  full  of  ships,  for  the  westerly  winds 
had  detained  them  for  a  long  time.  I  had  followed  the 
brig  about  an  hour,  when  the  agent  went  on  shore  in  a 
pilot-boat,  and  I  expected  my  father  would  soon  be  ready ; 
then  the  wind  veered  more  towards  the  southward,  with 
dirt :  at  last  it  came  on  foggy,  and  I  could  hardly  see  the 
brig :  and  as  it  rained  hard  and  blew  harder,  I  wished  that 
my  father  was  ready,  for  my  arms  ached  with  steering  the 
coble  for  so  long  a  while.  1  could  not  leave  the  helm,  so 
I  steered  on  at  a  black  lump,  as  the  brig  looked  through  the 
fog ;  at  last  the  fog  was  so  thick  that  I  could  not  see  a  yard 
beyond  the  boat,  and  I  hardly  knew  how  to  steer.  I  began 
to  be  frightened ;  tired  and  cold  and  hungry  I  certainly  was. 
Well,  I  steered  on  for  more  than  an  hour,  when  the  fog 
cleared  up  a  little,  and,  to  my  joy,  I  saw  the  stern  of  the 
brig  just  before  me.  I  expected  ;hat  she  would  round-to 
immediately,  and  that  my  father  would  praise  me  for  my 
conduct ;  and,  what  was  still  more  to  the  purpose,  that  I 
should  get  something  to  eat  and  drink.  But  no  :  she  steered 
on  right  down  Channel,  and  I  followed  for  more  than  an 
hour,* when  it  came  on  to  blow  very  hard,  and  I  could 
scarcely  manage  the  boat — she  pulled  my  little  arms  off. 
The  weather  now  cleared  up,  and  I  could  make  out  the 
vessel  plainly,  when  I  discovered  that  it  was  not  the  brig, 
but  a  barque  which  I  had  got  hold  of  in  the  fog,  so  that  I  did 
not  know  what  to  do ;  but  I  did  as  most  boys  would  have 
done  in  a  fright,— I  sat  down  and  cried;  still,  however, 
keeping  the  tiller  in  my  hand,  and  steering  as  well  as  I 
could.  At  last,  I  could  "hold  it  no  longer;  I  ran  forward, 
let  go  the  fore  and  jib  halyards,  and  hauled  down  the  sails ; 
drag  them  into  the  boat  I  could  not,  and  there  I  was,  like 
a  young  bear  adrift  in  a  washing-tub.  I  looked  around,  an4 
336 


MOONSHINE 

there  were  no  vessels  near ;  the  bark  had  left  me  two  miles 
astern,  it  was  blowing  a  gale  from  the  SE.,  with  a  heavy 
sea — the  gulls  and  sea-birds  wheeling  and  screaming  in  the 
storm.  The  boat  tossed  and  rolled  about  so  that  I  was 
obliged  to  hold  on,  but  she  shipped  no  water  of  any  conse- 
quence, for  the  jib  in  the  water  forward  had  brought  her 
head  to  the  wind,  and  acted  as  a  sort  of  floating  anchor. 
At  last  I  lay  down  at  the  bottom  of  the  boat  and  fell  asleep. 
It  was  daylight  before  I  awoke,  and  it  blew  harder  than 
ever;  and  I  could  just  see  some  vessel  at  a  distance,  scud- 
ding before  the  gale,  but  they  could  hardly  see  me.  I  sat 
very  melancholy  the  whole  day,  shedding  tears,  surrounded 
by  nothing  but  the  roaring  waves.  I  prayed  very  earnestly  ; 
I  said  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Belief,  and  as  much  of  the 
Catechism  as  I  could  recollect.  I  was  wet,  starving,  and 
miserably  cold.  At  night  I  again  fell  asleep  from  exhaus- 
tion. When  morning  broke,  and  the  sun  shone,  the  gale 
abated,  and  I  felt  more  cheered ;  but  I  was  now  ravenous 
from  hunger,  as  well  as  choking  from  thirst,  and  was  so 
weak  that  I  could  scarcely  stand.  I  looked  round  me  every 
now  and  then,  and  in  the  afternoon  saw  a  large  vessel  stand- 
ing right  for  me ;  this  gave  me  courage  and  strength.  I 
stood  up  and  waved  my  hat,  and  they  saw  me — the  sea  was 
still  running  very  high,  but  the  wind  had  gone  down.  She 
rounded-to  so  as  to  bring  me  under  her  lee.  Send  a  boat 
she  could  not,  but  the  sea  bore  her  down  upon  me,  and  I 
was  soon  close  to  her.  Men  in  the  chains  were  ready  with 
ropes,  and  I  knew  that  this  was  my  only  chance.  At  last, 
a  very  heavy  sea  bore  her  right  down  upon  the  boat,  lurch- 
ing over  on  her  beam  ends,  her  main  chains  struck  the 
boat  and  sent  her  down,  while  I  was  seized  by  the  scruff 
of  the  neck  by  two  of  the  seamen,  and  borne  aloft  by  them 
as  the  vessel  returned  to  the  weather-roll.  I  was  safe. 
And,  as  soon  as  they  had  given  me  something  to  eat,  I  told 
my  story.  It  appeared  that  she  was  an  East  Indiaman, 
running  down  Channel,  and  not  likely  to  meet  with  any- 
thing to  send  me  back  again.  The  passengers,  especially 
the  ladies,  were  very  kind  to  me :  and  as  there  was  no  help 
for  it,  why,  I  took  my  first  voyage  to  the  East  Indies." 

"  And  your  father  and  your  brother  ?  " 

"Why,  when   I   met  them,  which  I   did  about   six  years 
337  Y 


OLLA  PODRIDA 

afterwards,  I  found  that  they  had  been  in  much  the  same 
predicament,  having  lost  the  coble,  and  the  weather  being 
so  bad  that  they  could  not  get  on  shore  again.  As  there 
was  no  help  for  it,  they  took  their  first  voyage  to  the  West 
Indies ;  so  there  was  a  dispersion  of  a  united  family — two 
went  west,  one  went  east,  coble  went  down,  and  mother, 
after  waiting  a  month  or  two,  and  supposing  father  dead, 
went  off  with  a  soldier.  All  dispersed  by  one  confounded 
gale  of  wind  from  the  northward  and  eastward,  so  that's  the 
way  that  I  went  to  sea,  Bob.  And  now  it's  time  that  Moon- 
shine was  back." 

But  Moonshine  kept  us  waiting  for  some  time  :  when  he 
returned  it  was  quite  dark,  and  we  had  lighted  candles, 
anxiously  waiting  for  him  ;  for  not  only  was  the  bottle  empty, 
but  we  were  very  hungry.  At  last  we  heard  a  conversation 
at  the  gate,  and  Moonshine  made  his  appearance  with  the 
two  bottles  of  spirits,  and  appeared  himself  to  be  also  in  high 
spirits.  The  pork  and  peas-pudding  soon  were  on  the  table. 
We  dined  heartily,  and  were  sitting  over  the  latter  part 
of  the  first  bottle  in  conversation,  it  being  near  upon  the 
eleventh  hour,  when  we  heard  a  noise  at  the  gate — observed 
some  figures  of  men,  who  stayed  a  short  time  and  then  dis- 
appeared. The  door  opened,  and  Moonshine  went  out.  In 
a  few  seconds  he  returned,  bringing  in  his  arms  an  anker  of 
spirits,  which  he  laid  on  the  floor,  grinning  so  wide  that  his 
head  appeared  half  off.  Without  saying  a  word,  he  left  the 
room  and  returned  with  another. 

"  Why,  what  the  devil's  this  ?  "  cried  Cockle. 

Moonshine  made  no  answer,  but  went  out  and  in  until 
he  had  brought  six  ankers  in,  one  after  another,  which  he 
placed  in  a  row  on  the  floor.  He  then  shut  the  outside 
door,  bolted  it,  came  in,  and  seating  himself  on  one  of  the 
tubs,  laughed  to  an  excess  which  compelled  him  to  hold  his 
sides  ;  Cockle  and  I  looking  on  in  a  state  of  astonishment. 

"  Where  the  devil  did  all  this  come  from  ?  "  cried  Cockle, 
getting  out  of  his  easy  chair.  u  Tell  me,  sir,  or  by — 

"  I  tell  you  all,  Massa  Cockle : — you  find  me  better  friend 
dan  Missy  O' Bottom.  Now  you  hab  plenty,  and  neber  need 
scold  Moonshine  'pose  he  take  lilly  drap.  I  get  all  dis  present 
to  you,  Massa  Cockle." 

Feeling  anxious,  I  pressed  Moonshine  to  tell  his  story. 


MOONSHINE 

"  I  tell  you  all,  sar.  When  I  come  back  wid  de  two  bottle 
I  meet  plenty  men  wid  de  tubs.  Dey  say,  'Hollo  there, 
who  be  you  ? '  I  say,  '  I  come  from  station :  bring  massa  two 
bottle,'  and  I  show  um.  Den  dey  say,  '  Where  you  massa  ? ' 
and  I  say,  '  At  um  house  at  Ryde ' — (den  dey  tink  dat  you 
my  massa,  Massa  Farren)— so  dey  say,  'Yes,  we  know  dat, 
we  watch  him  dere,  but  now  you  tell,  so  we  beat  you  dead.' 
Den  I  say,  '  What  for  dat ;  massa  like  drink,  why  you  no 
gib  massa  some  tub,  and  den  he  neber  say  noting,  only  make 
fuss  some  time,  cause  of  Admirality.'  Den  dey  say,  ( You 
sure  of  dat  ? '  and  I  say,  '  Quite  sure  massa  neber  say  one 
word.'  Den  dey  talk  long  while ;  last,  dey  come  and  say, 
'  You  come  wid  us  and  show  massa  house.'  So  two  men 
come  wid  me,  and  when  dey  come  to  gate  I  say,  '  Dis  massa 
house  when  he  live  at  Ryde,  and  dere  you  see  massa ; ' — and 
I  point  to  Massa  Cockle,  but  dey  see  Massa  Farren — so  dey 
say,  '  All  very  good ;  tree,  four  hour  more,  you  find  six  tub 
here  ;  tell  you  massa  dat  every  time  run  tub,  he  alway  hab 
six  ; '  den  dey  go  way,  den  dey  come  back,  leave  tub ;  dat 
all,  massa." 

"  You  rascal ! "  exclaimed  I,  rising  up,  "  so  you  have  com- 
promised me  ;  why,  I  shall  lose  my  commission  if  found  out." 

"  No,  sar ;  nobody  wrong  but  de  smuggler ;  dey  make  a 
lilly  mistake ;  case  you  brought  to  court-martial,  I  give 
evidence,  and  den  I  clear  ; 'r*a.  ' 

"  But  what  must  we  do  with  the  tubs,  Cockle  ? "  said  I, 
appealing  to  him. 

"Do,  Bob? — why,  they  are  a  present — a  very  welcome 
one,  and  a  very  handsome  one  into  the  bargain.  I  shall  not 
keep  them,  I  pledge  you  my  word ;  let  that  satisfy  you — 
they  shall  be  fairly  entered." 

"  Upon  that  condition,  Cockle,"  I  replied,  "  I  shall,  of 
course,  not  give  information  against  you."  (I  knew  full  well 
what  he  meant  by  saying  he  would  not  keep  them.) 

"How  I  do,  Massa  Cockle?"  said  Moonshine,  with  a  grave 
face  ;  "  I  take  um  'to  the  Custom-house  to-night  or  to-morrow 
morning  ?  " 

"To-morrow,  Moonshine,"  replied  Cockle  ;  "at  present  just 
put  them  out  of  sight." 

I  did  not  think  it  prudent  to  make  any  further  inquiries ; 
but  I  afterwards  discovered  that  the  smugglers,  true  to  their 
339 


OLLA   PODRIDA 

\vord,  and  still  in  error,  continued  to  leave  six  tubs  in  old 
Cockle's  garden  whenever  they  succeeded  in  running  a  cargo, 
which,  notwithstanding  all  our  endeavours,  they  constantly 
did.  One  piece  of  information  I  gained  from  this  affair :  I 
found  that  the  numbers  of  the  cargoes  which  were  run  com- 
pared to  those  which  were  seized  during  the  remainder  of 
the  time  I  was  on  that  station,  was  in  the  proportion  of  ten 
to  one.  The  cargoes  run  were  calculated  by  the  observations 
of  old  Cockle,  who,  when  I  called  upon  him,  used  to  say  very 
quietly,  "  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  they  did  not  run  a  cargo  last 
night,  Bob,  in  spite  of  all  your  vigilance — was  it  very  dark  ?  " 
"  On  the  contrary/'  replied  I,  looking  at  the  demure  face 
of  the  negro ;  "  I  suspect  it  was  Moonshine." 


THE  END 


A    000026169 


